Paterson Contracting has got rid of another raft of workers.The number of staff at the Paget firm, based on Harbour Road, is understood to have dwindled to just six or seven, compared to about 34 at the end of 2010.Former employees, speaking to The Royal Gazette on condition of anonymity, told this newspaper they were called to a meeting by owner Kevin Petty during the last week of June and told they were no longer needed.One source said about 17 workers had been let go so far this year.“Some were in May and the rest were in June,” the source said. “No one was ever given termination letters but in theory they were told to find another job.”In January last year, Paterson laid off ten workers, blaming the sluggish construction industry.A former employee who lost his job in May this year told this newspaper he worked for the company for years but had yet to receive any severance pay.“I’m waiting for my redundancy,” he said. “That’s the important thing for me right now.”The Employment Act requires workers who are made redundant to receive two weeks wages for every completed year of continuous employment, up to to the first ten years, and three weeks wages for each completed year of continuous employment thereafter, up to a maximum of 26 weeks wages.Another former employee said the foreman told a group of workers they were out of work a couple of weeks ago. “They said they’d laid off everybody. Right now, none of us is working.“I don’t know if it’s a temporary thing or if we are totally laid off. They should say something to the workers. Right now, we have got no work. We don’t know yet what that will mean.”A fourth man said: “We were told that we were getting laid off. That’s all we were told, verbally. This was the owner himself. We had a meeting with Kevin Petty about two weeks ago.“He informed us the company wasn’t doing very well and he’s going to have to lay some guys off. This was prior to the end of June.”The man said Mr Petty told staff that Paterson was going through a “rough patch” but he would do his best to keep the company afloat.“He said he wasn’t sure where it was going to go. It was pretty short and abrupt. It wasn’t like [this is happening] in the next couple of weeks. It was now. As far as our wages, we are up to date.”Mr Petty, former owner of Newstead Belmont Hills, told this newspaper on Friday that staff were let go “due to lack of work”.He could not be reached for further comment yesterday.