Forestry firm cuts staff hours

Marlborough forestry workers are working four-day weeks following a collapse in foreign demand for New Zealand wood.

The industry is facing a downturn in construction and manufacturing, particularly overseas. Top of the South mills have also been flooded with logs that Nelson forestry companies were forced to harvest earlier than planned after storms smashed through their forests last year.

Nelson logging crews working for Nelson Forests were told on Monday that jobs with that company will go.

Blenheim-based logging contractor Andy Gale said there were no plans to cut jobs within his logging contracting company, which employed nine people. However, the lack of work caused by the drop in demand for wood meant many of his loggers had been put on four-day weeks. "Basically, logging contractors have been put on quite empty quotas, which is not allowing them to be able to meet their weekly targets."

He said local mills were flooded with wind throw and snow-damaged trees in the Nelson area, which had added to the problems caused by a poor export market. "There just isn't a hell of a lot of demand from overseas buyers."

Mr Gale said Nelson companies had to take on extra contractors to clean up the damaged trees and he suspected these were some of the people being laid off. He said there was a shortage of forestry workers in Marlborough and contractors would be reluctant to lay people off.

"The feeling is that the forestry companies are trying hard to keep us busy because they know they need us in the future."

Even on a four-day week, loggers could still make between $600 and $800 a week, but others had taken part-time jobs to fill the gap, he said. "We can only hope it will be short term and doesn't last too long. Everyone just has to work together to work through these tough times."

Merrill and Ring NZ Ltd is an American-owned forestry management company that also owns forestry in Marlborough and employs four Marlborough-based logging contractors. Forest manager Murray Turbitt said there had been no job losses at the company, though it had been affected by the drop in demand for timber, and was monitoring its income and expenditure closely. "We are reviewing it all the time, but it is business as usual this week anyway. The prices we have at the moment are fixed until the end of January, but after then, who knows what will happen."

Pelorus Contracting owner Andy Stewart, who employs 18 people and is one of Merrill and Ring's contractors, said layoffs were inevitable unless extra quota was made available.

"People are saying that if we can get through the first quarter it should pick up again.

"Prices could pick up at any time. That is what we are hoping."

Richmond-based Nelson Forests is American-owned and its forest-products company Nelson Management grows and harvests 65,000 hectares of forests in Nelson and Marlborough as well as owning the Kaituna Sawmill near Renwick.

National Distribution union president Robert Reid has been reported as saying the Kaituna workers had been told that some export-logging contractors had not had their contracts renewed, but that would have no effect on the sawmill where it would be business as usual.

- The Marlborough Express