Chocolate job outlook sour

A cloud will hang over Cadbury Confectionery in Dunedin for the next few months after a shock global restructuring announcement from its London-based parent company.

More than 5000 workers globally could lose jobs and more than 25 of its worldwide factories could close during the next four years.

Dunedin's Service and Food Workers Union organiser Neville Donaldson, who has 540 members at Cadbury, was unaware of the restructuring proposals but was optimistic the Dunedin factory could survive any cuts.

"With the limited knowledge I have, I'm reasonably confident the Dunedin operation will be able to continue. It has grown, not shrunk, during the past nine years," he said yesterday.

Cadbury's in Dunedin employs more than 700 people, including full-time and part-time jobs. Its sugar factory in Avondale, Auckland, employs more than 200 people.

Mr Donaldson said all Cadbury's stable of global companies were regularly reviewed and in Dunedin the volume and productivity had steadily risen, as had "core" permanent staffing levels from about 230 to 450 during the past nine years.

Cadbury's company secretary in Auckland, John Crawford, said yesterday that the recent laying off of 120 casual staff in Dunedin, which would usually happen closer to Christmas, was not related to the global restructuring but was a seasonal adjustment.

Cadbury Schweppes is the world's third largest soft-drink producer and a leading confectionery maker.

The company told the London and New York stock exchanges on Monday that in order to save $1.12 billion by 2007 it planned to cut 10 per cent of its 55,000-strong global work force and shut a fifth of its 133 factories.

Company representatives in New Zealand and Australia had no further information about the global restructuring yesterday.

Other industry sources understood that the parent company would spend several months forming a new cost-cutting strategy before details were revealed.

Associated Press in London said the company did not say where the job cuts would be.

Cadbury's new chief executive, Todd Stitzer, said "as and when we take action, people will be spoken to sensitively and thoughtfully".

Cadbury's parent said that poor market conditions led to flat first-half earnings in June which had prompted the moves to find savings.

Cadbury last month said trading in the year to the end of December would be broadly similar to its performance in the first half.

Confectionery sales suffered during the European heat wave in August, and the company has also complained of tough market conditions in the US and the Asia-Pacific region.

- NZPA