American Samoa's tuna company Starkist Samoa is anticipating a staff shortage when operations resume in the New Year.
Employees from Samoa are returning home for the Christmas holiday, but management is expecting a large number of them to stay and help with the clean-up after cyclone Evan
About 86 per cent of the company's staff are Samoan.
The communications manager at Starkist, Meki Solomona, says they are preparing to accommodate the shortage:
"We do exchange our information that we get from the ferry and the people who are scheduled to come from Western Samoa to here so that we can gauge how many people are coming back. But for sure, with the devastation in our neighbouring island I'm sure there will be some that will take a little bit longer to come back."
The communications manager at Starkist Samoa, Meki Solomona.
