Trading Markets (press release)
SYDNEY, Feb 25, 2014 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) — PFBDF | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating — A total of 600 New South Wales (NSW) clothing manufacturing workers will be out of work when Pacific Brands (ASX:PBG) closes its four sites in the state.
ic Brands, which manufactures clothing brands including Bonds, Holeproof and King Gee, on Wednesday announced it would shed 1,850 jobs across Australia.
It follows the company posting a first half year loss of almost $A150 million ($US97.52 million).
Manufacturing will shut down at seven sites across the country, with 1,200 redundancies over the next 18 months.
Four of those sites are in NSW, with 207 jobs to go at Unanderra in the Illawarra, 233 at Wentworthville in Sydney’s west, 83 at Cessnock in the Hunter region and 74 at Bellambi south of Sydney.
Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union (TCFU) assistant secretary Steve Davis said while the falling share price showed the company was in difficulty, the decision to stop manufacturing in Australia came out of the blue.
“Some of the workers have been there for over 25 years, straight out of school, straight off the migrant ship into machinist jobs and that’s all they know,” Mr Davis told AAP.
“Some of them are going to be at that age where its going to be very difficult to get jobs, others who are a bit younger are going to need retraining.”
TCFU officials and delegates were meeting with Pacific Brands on Wednesday afternoon in Sydney to discuss what entitlements workers would receive.
Mr Davis said he expected they would be paid out in full.
He said with three of the plants flagged for closure in regional areas, local economies would also feel the effect of the closures.
“You’re talking millions of dollars a year that will now not flow into the communities,” Mr Davis said.
“It’s going to have an enormous effect on these places.”
