More jobs, but not for all

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More jobs, but not for all

3News NZ

The factory’s owner, carpet company Cavalier Bremworth, says high wool prices and a soft construction industry forced the shutdown

The factory’s owner, carpet company Cavalier Bremworth, says high wool prices and a soft construction industry forced the shutdown

By Simon Shepherd

Tough trading conditions and high wool prices have forced the closure of an Auckland yarn spinning factory and the loss of 70 jobs.

And it seems those made redundant face a bleak future – as Government papers reveal most of the new 100,000 jobs it claims will be created will probably go to professional men.

After 25 years at the same yarn spinning factory, Sylvia Sands needs a new job.

“All of the staff that have been laid off are all long term, there’s only a couple of them that would be in the five years bracket,” she says.

The factory’s owner, carpet company Cavalier Bremworth, says high wool prices and a soft construction industry forced the shutdown.

The 70 job losses at the Auckland factory come on top of 50 from this month's closure of Summit Wool Spinners in Oamaru.

The workers’ union blames a lack of Government vision.

“The Government sits on its hands and says let the market do what the market does, will see closure after closure and more and more people losing their jobs,” says First Union general secretary Robert Reid.

There will be new jobs, 100,000 of them – but a Department of Labour briefing from December obtained by RadioLIVE says most will be in highly skilled male dominated areas.

“Males, particularly pakehas, might have a better shot – women, Maori, Pasifika will miss out,” says Labour economic development spokesman David Cunliffe.

But the Employment Minister Steven Joyce doesn’t appear worried.

“I get briefings all the time on employment matters and they all have slightly different views on each occasion.”

And the minister says short-term there will be enough lower-skilled jobs in Christchurch.

“If there is people who want to help out in the Christchurch rebuild and take a new career in the trades then there’s plenty of help to do so."

But long-term, even the business lobby says not enough is being down to up-skill everyone.

“So the real challenge of Government and the business sector, unions, everybody else is to make sure that our skills systems are much more inclusive than they are today,” says Business New Zealand CEO Phil O’Reilly.

And Mr Joyce agrees. After Christchurch is finished, the more skills, the better the job prospects for people.  

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Comments

28/06/2012 12:31:47 p.m.

Mike wrote:

NZ has a recession. The world has a recession. The shortage of houses is a direct result of Labours RMA which strangled new housing development and Auckland needs more homes built now. If the new housing was built, that would provide more jobs, plus more demand for likes of carpet and everythig else, it would also reduce the house/rent prices some in Auckland.

So what does Reid suggest instead? Maybe union strikes costing businesses money and more closures and jobs lost? This seams to be many a union answer to everything - industrial action till have no jobs.

The profitability of Norman Ellision Carpets is too low currently. $3.5 mil just doesn't cut it for the investment. In the last NZ recession Caird Carpets was making around that profitability by itself without the rest of the Norman Ellison Group. But it was doing too well, had to be shut down.

But NZ has a history of backwards thinking. If a business does well, the others in the industry, including unions try to kill them than to change themselves.

If the NZ carpet industry we have seen about 10 major companies die. This is downsizing not closure. While they are downsizing, we are importing more capret from australia where it has a higher dollar and higher wage costs. ie NZ could do much better than we are doing and something is seriously wrong when australia with its higher dollar and wages can produce cheaper, and then ship it accross the expensive tasman cheaper than we can make in NZ!

NZ growth this last quarter was the highest in 5 years. This is near the best in the OECD currently. We could be doing a lot worse. The unions could sit down with business and see what they could do to help business, instead of treating business as an enemy till the businesses treat unions as the enemy.

Take Ports of Auckland, vs Ports of Tauranga. Both union staff, but one bunch work with the port, the other just had about a year of industrial action over sociable hours to the cost of all NZ.