Business icons' new exports: 830 jobs
Source: New Zealand Herald (Original Article)
‘Going global’ can have a cost at home.
Two of New Zealand’s best-known firms, Fisher & Paykel Appliances and ANZ, are moving jobs to other countries.
Fisher & Paykel is closing its Mosgiel manufacturing site and laying off 430 workers.
Citing high costs, it said yesterday that it would move the Mosgiel operation and others in Brisbane and the US to Thailand, Mexico and Italy.
ANZ National, New Zealand’s largest bank, said it would outsource hundreds of jobs to India, but insisted no one would be made redundant.
But the bank workers’ union, Finsec, said job losses were inevitable under the cost-cutting plan.
The bank said it planned to move about “1 per cent of our New Zealand work to ANZ Bangalore this calendar year, and up to 5 per cent by the end of 2009″.
Dunedin knitwear manufacturer Tamahine Holdings also announced yesterday that it was closing, with the loss of about 50 jobs.
Chairman Trevor Scott said the factory had been running since 1970, but over the past 20 years it had battled to cope with a deregulated market that allowed a “flood of low-cost Asian imports”.
This had been exacerbated by the new free trade agreement with China and the high New Zealand dollar.
Meanwhile, ANZ National chief executive Graham Hodges said the bank’s decision represented about 400 jobs but the proposal would “not necessarily” result in a smaller New Zealand workforce for the bank.
“Our goal is to redeploy all our people who may be affected by this initiative, and we are confident in achieving this goal because, with normal staff turnover, we employ around 800 new people in Wellington and Auckland each year.
“The staged shift of work over the next 18 months will also help staff who wish to be re-deployed to find a suitable alternative role within the bank.
“As a result none of our staff need to lose their job,” Mr Hodges said.
Andrew Frequent Flyer Campbell of Finsec, which believes up …continue reading