Mitre 10 proposing to disestablish 36 roles at its headquarters

Mitre 10 New Zealand has begun consulting with its team on cutting 36 roles at its support centre. Local Mitre 10 store teams are unaffected by the proposal. Photo / NZME

Hardware retail giant Mitre 10 is proposing to cut 36 jobs at its national headquarters in Albany.

Mitre 10 New Zealand chief executive Andrea Scown confirmed the retailer had begun consultation with its team on the disestablishment of 36 roles at its support centre.

“Despite our ongoing focus on cost, the current economic conditions along with low consumer confidence and spending means we need to consult with our team,” Scown said.

“We are conscious of the impact of these proposed changes on our team, and our focus is on supporting them. We expect to complete the consultation process by the end of August.”

Scown said the proposed changes did not affect local Mitre 10 store teams.

Mitre 10 operates as a co-operative-based business, with around 84 stores, employing more than 8000 people. However, the business’ parent company, Mitre 10 (New Zealand), made a $67 million loss from June 30, 2022, to 2023, recent figures show. This was largely due to a big information technology upgrade.

Around 67 store owner/operators own parcels of shares in Mitre 10 (New Zealand) – the biggest being Riviera Hardware Holdings.

Insight previously reported by the Herald describes the Mitre 10 structure as: “M10 corporate doesn’t run the local M10 store. They supply the items stocked by the stores. They have huge overheads with staff and executives, but no direct influence over what the stores choose to stock from their catalogue, and the margins applied are fixed. M10 head office profit is generated by a percentage of sales on the items supplied to the locally owned M10 stores.”

In December last year, Mitre 10 laid off 14 staff from its headquarters in Albany.

“We recently concluded a consultation process at our national support centre and 14 roles were made redundant from our total support centre team of 506,” a spokeswoman said at the time.

That same month Riviera Hardware Holdings announced 33 people were leaving its stores, most by way of redundancy. It was hiring 20 staff as it “realigned rosters”.

Cameron Smith is an Auckland-based journalist with the Herald business team. He joined the Herald in 2015 and has covered business and sports. He reports on topics including retail, small business, the workplace and macroeconomics.