NAPILI, Maui — Hundreds of Maui Land & Pineapple Co. workers ended their shifts yesterday uncertain whether they will have a job on Monday.

The company announced yesterday it was laying off 274 employees, but the 204 union members to be cut from pineapple operations won't be identified until next week, according to ML&P and ILWU 142 officials.

The workers are scheduled to meet with union leaders Monday and perhaps learn their fate.

"We have two more days. We don't know what's going to happen," said Senon Aquino, 58, an irrigation worker who has been with ML&P subsidiary Maui Pineapple Co. for 30 years.

Aquino said workers were in the dark about the layoffs and left to consider the impact of sudden unemployment.

"It's the American Dream, until you lose your job," he said. "Then it's the American nightmare."

Ten-year employee Nelson Agbayani, 43, works in the research department. He said that if he loses his job, he would scramble to find "whatever work I could do."

"It would be bad news," Agbayani said.

The bad news already was delivered to 70 employees in subsidiary Kapalua Resort's corporate and community development units who were given immediate layoffs.

Company spokeswoman Teri Freitas Gorman said affected workers are being given severance packages that include at least two weeks' pay. ML&P also will assist them in participating in federal and state workforce development programs.

A "Rapid Response Team" from the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations will meet Tuesday with affected workers at Kapalua Resort to explain unemployment benefits and other programs.

BASED ON SENIORITY

Contract provisions regarding seniority and other issues will determine who among the Maui Pine workers will stay and who will go, said William Kennison, ILWU 142 Maui Division director.

He said longtime employees will have the edge, but at this point there is no final list of workers targeted for layoffs.

"We are still working on the particulars but we more or less have an idea," Kennison said. "It's going to be by seniority."

Certain to go will be 80 contract field workers from Pohnpei in Micronesia, according to Wes Nohara, general manager for all agricultural operations, including Maui Pineapple Co. and Kapalua Farms.

Although their status as Pacific Trust Territory residents allows them to stay in the country, Nohara said he expects nearly all will return to Micronesia. The company will pay for their travel home, he said.

The workers, mostly single men, live in company dormitories. They gain union protection after 100 work days.

One of those contract workers, Hernis Saimon, 29, said he sends the money he earns from his Maui job to his mother and other family members in Pohnpei. Saimon, who has been working for Maui Pine for two years, said he had not been told he would be losing his job.

"It's sad. I don't have time to consider it yet. It just happened," he said.

Other employees returning from the fields yesterday said they learned of the layoffs from news accounts and had not been notified by the company.

Quirino Villaluz, a 20-year employee, said he and other workers face losing their homes if put out of work.

"We're waiting for the final word because we don't know anything. It's going to be a terrible weekend," he said.

Kennison said the contract calls for eight days' severance pay for each year of service, and the union will be discussing continuing healthcare coverage and other benefits "to cushion the impact" of the layoffs.

HOSTILE JOB MARKET

The 204 positions are less than half the ILWU workers employed at ML&P, according to Kennison. The union has about 8,000 members in Maui County, most employed by hotels.

The job cuts represent a 26.2 percent decrease in ML&P's workforce of 1,045.

With other businesses affected by high fuel costs, a slowdown in tourism and a sagging economy, the laid-off ML&P workers face a hostile job market.

"The current job availability at the hotels is poor," said Carol Reimann, executive director of the Maui Hotel & Lodging Association.

"One of the larger hotel properties on Maui reported having just under 200 job openings at this time last year; there are 29 openings today," she said. "For smaller properties, the situation is not any better, if not worse. Given the airline situation and high cost of fuel's ripple effect on our island, many businesses are tightening their belts and simply not filling positions."

To help with state efforts to find new employment for the affected ML&P workers, the hotel association has put out a request to members for job listings.

Kennison said the layoffs will be "devastating."

"With where the economy is headed, it's not going to be that easy to find work," he said. "If the economy doesn't shape up and if it stays the same, there's going to be more to come."

Kennison said Maui hotels have been implementing small-scale layoffs of "10 workers here, 15 there, but nothing along the magnitude of Maui Pine." To avoid massive layoffs, hotels have been releasing casual workers, cutting employee hours and asking workers to use up their leave during this slow period.

"They're all struggling," he said of the hotels.

James Hardway of the state labor department said it's too early to tell what impact the ML&P layoffs will have on unemployment and the economy.

Last month's unemployment rate on Maui was 4.3 percent, up from 2.6 percent a year ago. Hardway downplayed the increase, saying it's unrealistic to expect any unemployment rate to stay below 3 percent.

"A lot of it is going to depend on other employers and industries and how well they can absorb those workers back into the workforce. We'll have to watch for the next several months."

Historically, displaced farm workers have been able to find jobs in the hotel industry, he said. Work may be available on some of Maui's smaller farms that are now using contract labor, Hardway said.

When 270 workers were laid off after ML&P demolished the Kapalua Bay Hotel for reconstruction in 2006, most were able to find work at other hotels, he said. Hardway acknowledged the circumstances are different now, and that many hotels aren't hiring.

The state offers 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, but Gov. Linda Lingle recently extended that by 13 weeks.

Hardway said the average length of stay on unemployment in Hawai'i is 13 to 14 weeks.