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Two of New Zealand's best-known firms, Fisher & Paykel Appliances and ANZ, are moving jobs to other countries.
Fisher & Paykel is closing its Mosgiel manufacturing site and laying off 430 workers.
Citing high costs, it said yesterday that it would move the Mosgiel operation and others in
Brisbane and the US to Thailand, Mexico and Italy.
ANZ National, New Zealand's largest bank, said it would outsource hundreds of jobs to India, but insisted no one would be made redundant.
But the bank workers' union, Finsec, said job losses were inevitable under the cost-cutting plan.
The bank said it planned to move about "1 per cent of our New Zealand work to ANZ Bangalore this calendar year, and up to 5 per cent by the end of 2009".
Dunedin knitwear manufacturer Tamahine Holdings also announced yesterday that it was closing, with the loss of about 50 jobs.
Chairman Trevor Scott said the factory had been running since 1970, but over the past 20 years it had battled to cope with a deregulated market that allowed a "flood of low-cost Asian imports".
This had been exacerbated by the new free trade agreement with China and the high New Zealand dollar.
Meanwhile, ANZ National chief executive Graham Hodges said the bank's decision represented about 400 jobs but the proposal would "not necessarily" result in a smaller New Zealand workforce for the bank.
"Our goal is to redeploy all our people who may be affected by this initiative, and we are confident in achieving this goal because, with normal staff turnover, we employ around 800 new people in Wellington and Auckland each year.
"The staged shift of work over the next 18 months will also help staff who wish to be re-deployed to find a suitable alternative role within the bank.
"As a result none of our staff need to lose their job," Mr Hodges said.
Andrew Campbell of Finsec, which believes up to 500 jobs will be lost, was sceptical, saying the banking group had given similar assurances when it began outsourcing Australian jobs. But so far only 38 per cent of the staff affected had been redeployed.
"I find it hard to believe you would offshore all of those jobs and create a whole lot of new ones."
Mr Hodges said the jobs affected would primarily be Auckland- and Wellington-based "processing, data entry, and account structure" roles.
He said the bank's plan had been discussed with the Reserve Bank, which permits outsourcing as long as it does not undermine a large bank's ability to provide core liquidity, payment and transaction services, both in good times and under stress.
Mr Hodges said outsourcing would give his bank a competitive advantage.
But Mr Campbell said that was likely to be shortlived as ASB Bank, Bank of New Zealand and Westpac would probably follow suit at further cost of New Zealand jobs.
ANZ National currently has a local workforce of 9600, up from 8800 three years ago.
Its net profit last year was $1.04 billion, up almost 60 per cent on its 2005 full-year result.
