By REBECCA WALSH and NZPA
Up to 500 people will lose their jobs after insurance changes and chaos in the country's electricity markets.
State Insurance, the biggest fire and general insurer, said yesterday that two of its five call centres would close at a cost of 120 jobs in Hamilton and
55 in Tauranga. The centres were being restructured.
Some staff in the company's sales centres would also lose their jobs.
And at On Energy, 300 staff appear likely to lose their jobs after the company's decision to quit the electricity retail market.
State Insurance chief executive David Smith said the company would reorganise its operations into a national-based "platform" by the end of the year.
The company would close half of its 60 sales centres by December. It was not known how many jobs would be lost when that happened.
A State spokesman said the sales centres employed about 70 people but some would be redeployed.
Mr Smith said the business was being reconfigured to meet customer demands.
All staff were being encouraged to apply for new jobs in the national structure.
Staff were being offered retraining and relocation packages to encourage them to stay with the company.
About 300 On Energy staff are expected to be affected by the company's announcement on Wednesday that it had sold its remaining 288,000 North Island commercial and residential electricity customers to state-owned Genesis Power.
That followed the sale last month of 116,000 of its South Island customers to state-owned Meridian Energy.
It is understood all the company's customer service staff will be out of work once the sales are completed.
On Energy has about 200 customer service staff at its call centre in Christchurch, 60 in Hamilton and about 40 in Wellington.
On Energy spokesman Bruce Thompson said it was inevitable that customer relations staff jobs were at risk "when we don't have any customers".
It was hoped some staff would find work with Genesis or Meridian.
Genesis will take over On Energy's North Island commercial and residential customers from next Wednesday, making it the biggest electricity retailer, with 450,000 customers.
The job losses in this country follow a string of international cuts, costing more than 50,000 jobs.
Among those to announce job losses in the past week were French telecoms equipment firm Alcatel, high-tech giant Hewlett-Packard and fibre-optic components firm JDS Uniphase.
Anne Knowles, executive director of Business New Zealand, did not believe there was any causal link between the international scene and the job losses here.
But she said that in a competitive economy there would always be some companies laying staff off while new employment opportunities opened up elsewhere.
Ms Knowles said that over the past five to 10 years there had been a net increase of jobs in this country and a decline in the jobless rate.
Upheaval in electricity and insurance threatens 500 jobs
By REBECCA WALSH and NZPA
Up to 500 people will lose their jobs after insurance changes and chaos in the country's electricity markets.
State Insurance, the biggest fire and general insurer, said yesterday that two of its five call centres would close at a cost of 120 jobs in Hamilton and
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