Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 7, 1990                   TAG: 9007070153
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NARROWS                                LENGTH: Short

CELANESE HIRES 80 WORKERS, A 4-YEAR RECORD

About 80 workers were hired for hourly and salaried positions ranging from operators to mechanics. All should be on board by the end of the month, said Gary List, human resources manager for the plant.

About 20 of the new employees had worked at AT&T and other area plants that have announced layoffs over the past few months, List said.

"It's been since 1986 that we've had any kind of hiring activity at this level," List said.

About 30 to 40 of the jobs were filled because of retirements at the plant. "We usually have an extremely low turnover rate," he said. "This was just a big retirement year."

Another 40 positions were added to help reduce acetone emissions.

"We went to the corporation and justified 32 positions just to continue working on the environmental front," List said. "We're trying to get emissions well below anything state or government might contemplate in the future."

Many of the salaried positions are being filled by workers from other Celanese locations, List said. The rest are being filled locally.

Workers will earn an average of $10 an hour, he said.