With several recent high-profile shutdowns amid a manufacturing decline dragging down our GDP, Emma Gleason takes stock of a decade of turmoil.
Did you hear? Manufacturing has declined 3.5%, contributing to the worse-than-anticipated GDP figures released last month. Oh and the price of electricity has skyrocketed, fuelling ongoing concerns about the industrial and social cost of high power prices in Aotearoa; a quarter of businesses have cut production due to the expense of it. Gas is up too.
Running a factory is expensive work. There are wages to service (high compared to offshore markets), raw materials to source and process, and shipping to pay for. Older plants and mills need repairs, upgrades and ongoing maintenance. With rising costs and soft demand – with the economy being quite shit and all – there are warnings that many businesses are in “freefall” and owners reportedly ready to “walk away”. Some already have.
When they do, the runoff can be immense. In August, Catherine McGregor wrote about the vulnerability of provincial centres, where towns that rely on manufacturing for employment risk becoming zombie towns if employers decide to get out of dodge. Anna Rankin did a deep, deep dive into Kinleith Mill in Tokoroa, looking at the human cost of its paper mill shut down, and the wider picture of Aotearoa’s ongoing deindustrialisation.
If you thought that was the last big one this year, think again. Kinleith Mill’s plywood plant is closing too. Meanwhile, things aren’t too sunny down in Nelson, where workers are preparing themselves for myriad manufacturing upheavals as several companies look to vacate the city, some consolidating operations in Auckland. With hundreds of jobs up in the air – many poised to join the 50,000 New Zealand has lost since 2023 – and the pile up of industrial and manufacturing layoffs growing, let’s zoom out for a (grim) look at just some of the plant, mill and factory shut downs that have made headlines in the past decade.
2025: Carter Holt Harvey’s plywood plant, Tokoroa
Part of the Kinleith Mill operation, the plywood plant’s closure means 119 jobs are set to go. It’s happening sooner than expected, a month early in fact, and staff were given their final notice on October 1.
2025: Eves Valley Sawmill, Tasman
Another Carter Holt Harvey closure in the pipeline, this one will see 142 jobs go. Staff received the news in early September, learning operations would wrap up from this month.
2025: Tokoroa’s Kinleith Mill: 150+ jobs
New Zealand’s “last paper manufacturing and packaging site” stopped producing paper in June, with a loss of over 150 jobs, as Anna Rankin reported in Grist for the Mill, her detailed Cover Story for The Spinoff. Shutting down the paper mill part of the operation, current owner Oji Fibre Solutions will instead import the paper required for its packaging.
Timber was a big industry for Tokoroa, but five mills have closed over the past year.
2025: Ravensdown fertiliser plant, Dunedin
The fertiliser co-operative closed its Ōtepoti factory (which had been going for nearly a century) with around 30 people losing their jobs. Manufacturing continues at its Napier and Christchurch factories, and sales are up.
2024: Smithfield meatworks, Timaru
Days before Christmas, after 138 years, red meat co-operative Alliance Group closed its Timaru plant (citing weak demand). Around 600 jobs were lost, and many former employees moved elsewhere to find work.
2024: Oji Fibre Solutions Mill, Penrose
More paper cuts, this time in Tāmaki Makaurau, where the company shut its paper recycling mill (also the week before Christmas), affecting 72 jobs.
2024: Tangiwai Sawmill and Karioi Pulpmill, Ruapehu
Citing unsustainable energy prices, Winston Pulp International Mill closed not one but two of its mills near Ohakune, with a loss of 230 jobs. Union reps were “devastated”. So was the community; the mill had been running for 45 years.
2023: JNL Sawmill, in Tairāwhiti
Another pre-Christmas closure, this time at the wood processors in Gisborne, where 60 workers found themselves out of a job when the Japanese-owned company Junken shut down its radiata pine factory due to what it said was declining demand and an ageing mill. However (plot twist) Australian group Millari bought the mill earlier this year, anticipating at least 150 jobs would be created.
2022: Marsden Point oil refinery, Whangārei
The last of its kind in Aotearoa, the decommissioning of the fuel refinery was an “economic decision”, resulting in 400 job losses to staff and contractors. The Channel Infrastructure-run site now functions as storage for imported fuel – 40% of New Zealand’s supply, and there are plans afoot to turn it into a big diesel-fired power plant.
2022: Ovato heatset printing, Auckland
While it wasn’t a complete closure of its Wiri plant, the shuttering of the company’s heat printing operation (the bit that does glossy mags and catalogues) was big enough to see 150 jobs go.
2021: Australian Pharmaceutical Industries, Auckland
150 jobs were lost when API shut its two manufacturing facilities in Manukau, moving production elsewhere.
2020: Mars Petcare, Whanganui
The American company ceased its New Zealand pet food production (and laid off 150 staff) after “no viable alternatives to closure” could be found, moving production offshore instead.
2020: Tasman Paper Mill, Kawerau
The plant had been running for 66 years before Norwegian owners Norske Skog decided to close, due to “the decline of the publication paper industry”. 160 jobs were lost in the town, and the environmental fallout from the mill – fast-tracked by the 1954 Tasman Pulp and Paper Company Enabling Act – continues.
2020: Imperial Tobacco Factory, Petone
Running since 1919, 122 jobs went up in smoke when the tobacco factory shut down.
2020: James Hardie factory, Auckland
Not long after the Covid years began, James Hardie decided to shut down the Penrose plant where it produced building products like fibre cement, shedding 120 jobs.
2018: Cadbury factory, Dunedin
Employing more than 350 people in its heyday, the chocolate brand’s multi-national owner Mondelez shut down the long-running Ōtepoti plant, alongside many around the world, as it shifted global production to “low-wage countries” for improved shareholder returns.
One News’ Mark Hathaway reporting from outside Dunedin’s Cadbury factory.
2016: Fisher & Paykel Appliances factory, Auckland
Ceasing production of “small refrigeration appliances” at its East Tamaki factory, Fisher & Paykel Appliances said the operation was no longer sustainable, and manufacturing of this category went offshore.
2015: Unilever plant, Petone
After making soap for nearly a century, in 2014 the decision was made to close the following year, cutting 58 jobs.
TBC:
If Griffin’s proposal to consolidate manufacturing in Auckland goes ahead, it would mean the closure of Proper Crisps’ Nelson factory, which the company bought in 2023. Sealord’s also looking to possibly close its coated fish factory. The meatworks industry is facing challenges. And what about Tiwai Point? Contrary to past suggestions of its closure, Rio Tinto has signed on to 20 more years at the aluminium smelter, and even increased production.