Provinces bear brunt of job cuts

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Labour has accused the Government of gutting precious jobs in the provinces, following today's announcement Inland Revenue (IRD) will axe nearly 200 jobs outside the main centres.

IRD plans to cull 191 fulltime positions in Rotorua, New Plymouth, Napier, Nelson and Invercargill by mid 2013 - slashing staff numbers at each office by more than half.

Labour's State Services spokeswoman Ruth Dyson said today's announcement was a body blow for the provinces and reinforced the "indiscriminate nature" of National's public service job cuts, following a number of job loss announcements for government departments.

The affected provincial areas generally could not compensate for large job losses and Ms Dyson accused National's provincial MPs of being silent.

"There is a common misconception that job cuts in the public services impact largely on Wellington," she said.

"That's not so. Provincial areas are the hardest hit. And the harsh reality is that provincial areas are those least well-placed to absorb job losses within their communities."

The Public Service Association (PSA) also condemned the cuts, saying provincial New Zealand needed more jobs, not fewer.

National secretary Richard Wagstaff said the cuts followed more than 30 job losses in Greymouth, Timaru and Gisborne.

"Despite conceding that 'virtual jobs' can be done anywhere, IRD is ripping work out of the regions for 'economies of scale'," he said.

"Good jobs bring benefits for the whole community, so local businesses are impacted when jobs go," he said.

"IRD is calling this overhaul an 'efficiency drive' but it's actually Government downsizing in action with the dirty work of implementing the cost-cutting being left to public sector chief executives.

But Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said that in the main the jobs cuts would be from backroom services that did not need to be performed in regional areas.

"No front-line jobs are at risk, all offices are remaining open."

The cuts were not severe as the 191 jobs were from a total staff of nearly 5700, which was 3.35 per cent.

"In some cases they may be redeployed, in some cases they may choose to take voluntary redundancy, we're entering now a process of consultation with them and the unions over the whole time frame for this, and I think if you look at the earlier round earlier this year, most of it was a reasonably satisfactory result."

IRD service delivery deputy commissioner Carolyn Tremain said a consultation process had begun and all proposed changes would be put to staff,

Any changes were expected to take about 18 months and would begin early next year.

Ms Tremain said IRD had been looking at where and how it delivered its services.

"We would maintain offices and counters in all our current locations but where and how we do some work may be changing," she said.

"We believe that work not requiring face-to-face contact should be grouped in larger centres, allowing regional sites to increase their focus on education and advisory services for their communities."

- NZPA