Council approves requested extension for StarPet grant requirement

ASHEBORO — As part of its consent agenda during its January monthly meeting, the Asheboro City Council approved a request by Starpet to grant it a one-year extension to make good on a grant condition that helped pay for an expansion project.

A letter from Saswati Biswas, Chief Financial Officer for Indorama, owner of StarPet Inc., outlining the request was part of the agenda materials for the Jan. 8 meeting. In it, he detailed a situation that illustrates problems employers are facing in an uncertain job market:

“This expansion required a 44,000 square foot addition to the current facility. As part of the project, Starpet agreed to create eleven new jobs and was awarded a $100,000 Building Reuse Grant. Despite its best efforts, Starpet has been unable to hire eleven new positions for the reasons set forth below and requests a one-year extension to meet this commitment.

“The company has faced several hurdles with respect to employee hiring and retention but continues to diligently attempt to hire and retain workers. In combination with the limited success in today’s exceedingly difficult post-COVID job market, Starpet has experienced a severe lack of labor availability resulting in a delay in the ramp up of production as planned. Although the company has successfully hired some new employees since the grant was awarded, Starpet has also lost several employees, resulting in a total current headcount of 110, which is four jobs short of the target number of 114. We are sincerely trying to fill all positions, but we anticipate these challenges to persist. 

“Starpet has been taking all possible steps to build its workforce but has been unsuccessful in today’s intensely competitive job market. Starpet’s Human Resources leadership has attended multiple job fairs in the area hosted by NC Works — two events at the Randolph County Armory, Ultracraft re-employment event, and CCHRPA events. The jobs have been and are currently active on several job posting sites (for example, Indeed.com, Randolph Community College job board, and GTCC job board) and the company estimates that they have called several hundred people in an effort to fill these open positions. Finding candidates who are willing to interview has been a major challenge — many potential candidates have not even shown up for scheduled interviews. Starpet is even actively trying to fill positions using temp agencies — Express Employment, The Resource and TRS, where we have had some success but usually their employment is short due to attendance or performance issues. The company is fearful that these labor issues will continue to get worse as large companies and suppliers also prepare to scale up hiring at this location.

“Starpet has invested $22.01M to date in this project, which is $4.61M more than its original commitment made to the City of Asheboro and Randolph County of $17.4M in new investment. This evidences the company’s good-faith effort to execute this project as committed.

“Starpet is very open and eager to take advantage of any additional resources that may exist which would help the company meet its hiring goals so it can scale its operations as planned. However, in the meantime, we request that the State extend the hiring timeline for this grant by one year and allow the company time to scale up its employment in today’s increasingly difficult job market.”

The request led to the “Authorization to request the NC Department of Commerce grant a 12-month extension for building reuse grant” that was approved by the City Council.

StarPet, located at 801 Pineview Road in Asheboro, takes purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and turns it into PET (polyethylene terephthalate), crystals and pellets that other manufacturers use to make plastic products such as bottles.