Another NZ sawmill closure announcedFriday 9 Dec 2011 The Eurocell timber mill in Upper Hutt is being closed down, with the loss of up to 40 jobs. The mill is owned by Christchurch based Ranex Group, which bought it in 2009. The mill will be phased out over time, with the last of the timber processing staff likely to lose their jobs by March.The company said that a lack of pick up from the Christchurch rebuild, trouble sourcing affordable logs, a weak housing sector and competition from exporters of raw logs were factors in its closure. The business will maintain a sales office in Upper Hutt with a handful of staff and Ranex said its Hunter Bonds timber business in Nelson and the Moutere timber mill would continue to operate unchanged. The Union representing wood processing workers says they have regularly dealt with wood processing job losses, including several over the past six months in Kawerau, Tangiwai and Feilding, as well as reduced hours in other areas. They estimate that 1,200 jobs in the wood processing industry had been lost since 2008 but that figure could be well under half the real amount when attrition and unreported job losses are taken into account. |
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