New Orleans lays off up to 3,000 workers

Mayor Ray Nagin said today that the city was laying off as many as 3,000 employees – or about half the city’s workforce – because f the damage done to New Orleans’ finances by Hurricane Katrina.

Nagin announced with “great sadness” that he had been unable to find the money to keep the workers on the payroll.

He said only non-essential workers would be laid off and that no firefighters or police would be among those let go.

“I wish I didn’t have to do this. I wish we had the money, the resources to keep these people,” Nagin said. ”The problem we have is we have no revenue streams.”

Nagin described the layoffs as “pretty permanent” and said that the city will work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to contact municipal employees who fled the city in the aftermath of Katrina, which struck about a month ago.

The mayor said the move will save about five million to eight million dollars of the city’s monthly payroll of 20 million dollars. The layoffs will take place over the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton met dozens of New Orleans-area evacuees staying at a shelter in Baton Rouge’s convention centre. And officials ended their door-to-door sweep for corpses in Louisiana with the death toll today at 972 – far fewer than the 10,000 the mayor had feared at one point. Mississippi’s Katrina death toll was 221.

A company hired by the state to remove bodies will remain on call if any others are found.