Australian Job Losses

Smurf1976 · 19 February 2009

Yesterday it was in the local papers (Tasmania) that:

30 gone at Rio Tinto Bell Bay (aluminium)

The Burnie and Wesley Vale paper mills are both under serious threat of outright closure, their future to be determined in a couple of months. There are hundreds of workers between the two mills.

Incat has absolutely no orders once current ships are finished. I'm not sure of the exact number, but Incat is one of the largest employers in the state. Used to be over 1000 people there, not sure how many there are now but it's less.

And the zinc works has told all 250 contractors on site that there will be no more work. There will be no job losses for company employees however, it's only contractors at this stage which implies they are cancelling all work other than simply running the place "as is". This place is the state's largest single exporter and by far the largest factory of any type in Hobart.

All that just yesterday in Tas and it adds up to well over 1000 jobs, a rather significant loss given the state's relatively small population. And they are all big companies - I doubt there would be anyone in the entire state who doesn't know someone who has worked for one of them or has worked there themselves.

Also I heard yesterday about a consulting firm laying off about 20 staff, that one wasn't in the paper however.

And today the headline is about job losses in the state public service. Not sure of the number, but it seems to be a case of no vacancies will be filled so numbers will steadily dwindle. So I'd say quite a lot of jobs to go there too.

Not looking good...

Trembling Hand · 20 February 2009

Dear Employees,
Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown of economy, Management has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 40 years of age and above on early retirement. This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to management to be eligible for the SHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced Termination) . Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW programme (Scheme Covering Retired Early Workers). A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as Management deems appropriate.

Persons who have been RAPED can only get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance). Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by Management.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on will receive as much **** (Special High Intensity Training) as possible Management has always taken immense pride on the amount of **** it gives employees. Should you feel that you do not receive enough ****, please bring it to the attention of your Supervisor.

They have been trained to give you all the **** you can handle.

Sincerely,
The Management

Aussiejeff · 20 February 2009

Great Southern (GTP) yesterday announced 138 jobs (or 30%) of its workforce had been canned.

Next?

Smurf1976 · 20 February 2009

Aussiejeff said:
Next?

More jobs going in Tas...

Gunns is temporarily shutting the Triabunna, Hampshire and Bell Bay mills for a while to reduce production which has been piling up. Bottom line is they can't sell the wood due to lack of demand so there's no point continuing production until the situation changes.

ACL is moving to a 4 day work week because of a plunge in sales. ACL being the only Australian automotive bearing manufacturer so it's an indicator of what's happening in the auto industry.

Delta Hydraulics has cut 23 jobs from their plant.

noirua · 20 February 2009

Job losses are likely to build up during the year inline with Europe and the United States. GM having announced 47,000 redundancies in America alone with further announcements to follow in Canada and Europe.
CSR closed their Viridian glass plant in Geelong and Laverton that makes car windows and windscreens.

Aussiejeff · 25 February 2009

Pacific Brands posts loss, will cut [size=+1]1850[/size] jobs

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25104222-5005961,00.html

God, NO!

Not the Rio & Jockey underdaks!

Now what am I gunna wear on me head???

numbercruncher · 25 February 2009

And it only snowballs .....

10,000 jobs to go as resources boom stutters
25/02/2009 9:00:00 AM
By Stuart Fagg, ninemsn Money

More than 10,000 mining, gas and oil jobs will be lost in the next 18 months as the resources boom grinds to a halt, according to a leading economist.

The job losses stem from the huge drop in commodity prices over the past year and resulting cancellation of resources projects across the oil gas and iron ore sectors.

Frank Gelber, chief economist at BIS Shrapnel said "a ballpark figure" of 10,000 jobs could go in Western Australia alone as investment in the minerals section slumps by at least 50 percent.

http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=756881

Navy might finally get enough folks applying to staff those submarines eh ?

Aussiejeff · 25 February 2009

numbercruncher said:
And it only snowballs .....

http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=756881

Navy might finally get enough folks applying to staff those submarines eh ?

Nope. All our un-employed will be shipped to the US to join in BO's Grande Economic Reconstruction kicking of soon this year.

Don'cha know the recession is all but over according to BenWankee?

Aussiejeff · 25 February 2009

Yeah. It gets worse.

Not just 1,850 sacked now.

But also total closure by 2010.

Crap. I suppose I can always try pantyhose.

http://business.theage.com.au/busin...-loss-set-to-axe-1850-jobs-20090225-8h6x.html

That 7% unemployment-by-this-time-next-year target is looming faster every day now. Might be a tad conservative?

gfresh · 25 February 2009

Well for every formal layoff there is a lot going down the path of "reduced hours/take an extended holiday", so won't even show up for quite a few months yet.. that period can't last that long, before they realise the business is still going to go under and they all get laid off completely. There were a couple of examples on the 7:30 Report last week.

Skilled vacancies in newspapers down 50% from a year ago, 22.2% fall in February alone!

http://www.businessspectator.com.au...ancies-fall-222-pct-in-Feb-PL2WH?OpenDocument

1 in 5 part-timers would like more work according to the ABS: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@...2E6CC1E17EACAB55CA2575660016933B?Opendocument

It will spend $100 million shift the work offshore, to China - a move that comes after a $15 million Federal Government handout that was supposed to bolster Pacific Brands' local manufacturing operations.

Great work Gumbyment! now effectively paying them $15m discount to help them shift operations to China

Happy · 25 February 2009

222 workers have been told they no longer have a job.

ALBURY MANUFACTURER TO SLASH 222 JOBS
From ABC, 25 Feb. 09

Over 200 employees of the gearbox manufacturer Drivetrain Systems International have been made redundant today.
Redundant factory workers in Albury have been told there will be help for them find new jobs.
The job cuts were announced on Friday and this morning, at a meeting with receivers, staff found out who had been made redundant.
One hundred and sixty-nine people still have a job with the company, but 222 workers have been told they no longer have a job.
However the future is still uncertain for the remaining staff, with the company only guaranteeing eight weeks of work.
New South Wales Regional Development Minister Phillip Costa spoke to the workers and says his government will help them.
"Through the regional development, we're looking at putting a group together to actually support the community and looking at ways in which we can help them forward in terms of finding them jobs, giving them some training for example," he said.
"There may be other packages that we can actually put together. We're putting a team together in the next day or so.
"What we needed to do is see what the real issues were here today first."
Long-term future
Mr Costa says the company will survive.
"The company's got a good product, there are some buyers there," he said.
"It's a matter of in this very difficult economic crisis across the world, this financial difficulty, that finding new buyers will be there, but this company does have a long-term future."
The workers were planning to boycott the meeting, but they changed their minds at a mass meeting yesterday.
Employee George Grzenda says if they did not go, they may not get Centrelink assistance through the Federal Government's General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme.
"If we don't take our letter we're not being redundant, we're being sacked," he said.
The workers are also concerned those who keep their jobs will not be able to work for a few weeks because supplies have not arrived at the factory.
A spokeswoman for Innovation Minister Kim Carr says he is keeping in close contact with the administrators of Drivetrain Systems International.
She says if the business is sold, the new owner may be able to access funding through the Federal Government's green cars plan.

shaunQ · 26 February 2009

5% of Goodman Fielder...

HIGH commodity costs and a consumer shift to cheap brands have eaten into profits at Goodman Fielder which will shed 5 per cent of its staff.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25107433-36281,00.html

knocker · 26 February 2009

No prob. We'll just bring in some more skilled labour!! Great stuff.

numbercruncher · 26 February 2009

knocker said:
No prob. We'll just bring in some more skilled labour!! Great stuff.

Yes - about 100k of them so we can shift another 100k Aussies onto the dole, borrow the money from the Chinese to pay their benefits and let the next generation pick up the tab ... happy days cobba ....

Aussiejeff · 26 February 2009

The 1,850 Pacific Brands jobs slashed represent only 20% of their workforce.

That means another 7,000 or so to go by the end of 2010.

I hope KRudd & GoHard are beefing up the customer service officer numbers at Centrelink! The Job Seeker queues will soon be spilling out into the streets everywhere. Funny, I seem to remember not long ago those two were chanting "JOBS, JOBS, JOBS" when it came to their plans for shielding our economy from the distant ravages of the World Financial Crisis.

Hmmmm. Maybe soup kitchens will have to be provided for the thousands of new applicants waiting in line?

Aussiejeff · 26 February 2009

..and there's more...

Australia's largest property developer Lend Lease said it will cut 1700 jobs over the next six months, after it posted a loss of almost $600 million for the first half.

Lend Lease chief executive Steve McCann said the company has been targeting a head count reduction to 10,000, from 12,000, in order to cut costs as market conditions deteriorate.

As of December 31, Lend Lease's head count stood at 11700.

Lend Lease shares were up 13 cents, or 2.65%, to $5.03 in early afternoon trade.

Mr McCann said most of the jobs would be project-related staff that would not be re-employed.

"Our total work force of over 12,000 people is expected to reduce to just under 10,000," Mr McCann said during a teleconference on Thursday.

"A large part of this is on project related staff where following completion of projects they will simply not redeployed.

"Geographically I'd say about 20% of that is in Australia, the balance is offshore."

http://business.theage.com.au/business/lend-lease-to-cut-1700-jobs-20090226-8im1.html

20% Oz positions out of the 1,700 jobs to go = 340.

Move along... next please...

gfresh · 27 February 2009

Go Telstra.. you're awesome

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2009/02/27/53871_gold-coast-top-story.html

UP TO 86 Gold Coast telecommunications workers will lose their jobs as Telstra prepares to close the city's only inbound customer call centre.

Shocked staff were given the bad news after lunch yesterday and told their jobs would become redundant from June 1.

An upset worker told The Bulletin the Bundall office was closed yesterday afternoon to allow staff to come to terms with the news.

"Some people have worked here for 25 years but there are also a lot of mums and dads in their 20s and 30s and we're all stunned," she said.

"We were all sent home after they told us because no one wanted to work any more after that."

Timmy · 27 February 2009

Sorry this is off topic, but here goes:

From a story in The Age.

"Woolworths will have another 7000 workers on its payroll by June"

"Chief executive officer Michael Luscombe said the retailer had created 9000 jobs in the half-year and expected to create a further 7000 positions by the end of June."

ps. Nothing to disclose.

shaunQ · 27 February 2009

Timmy said:
Sorry this is off topic, but here goes:

I don't think its off topic. You could create another thread, Australian Job Creations, but I guess it would be pretty empty. Thats a lot of positions, although presumably most low paid.

MR. · 27 February 2009

Timmy said:
Sorry this is off topic, but here goes:

From a story in The Age.

"Woolworths will have another 7000 workers on its payroll by June"

"Chief executive officer Michael Luscombe said the retailer had created 9000 jobs in the half-year and expected to create a further 7000 positions by the end of June."

ps. Nothing to disclose.

Not really off topic. I too thought of posting similar "good news". Nothing really stood out though. However 7000 + 9000 jobs created stands out!

Hope they're not just for part-time juniors! ???

Australian Job Losses

Smurf1976

Trembling Hand

Can be found on the bid

Aussiejeff

Smurf1976

noirua

Aussiejeff

numbercruncher

Beware of Dropbears

Aussiejeff

Aussiejeff

gfresh

Happy

shaunQ

knocker

numbercruncher

Beware of Dropbears

Aussiejeff

Aussiejeff

gfresh

Timmy

white swans need love too

shaunQ

MR.

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