{"id":358362,"date":"2026-04-01T09:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/358362\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T09:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:45:08","slug":"kaitaia-residents-say-town-will-be-devastated-if-big-employer-juken-nz-shuts-gates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/358362\/","title":{"rendered":"Kait\u0101ia residents say town will be devastated if big employer Juken NZ shuts gates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Juken New Zealand said it had been working over several years to improve the finances of its two Kait\u0101ia sites<\/a> but had not been able to make them sustainable.<\/p>\n

Kait\u0101ia has about 6000 people and the two mills employ more than 200 people.<\/p>\n

Resident and former editor of the Northland Age newspaper Peter Jackson said nobody saw the development coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere would be massive unemployment, there would be shop closures, there would be all sorts of financial fallout,\u201d he said, if closures happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d hate to think what the outcome would be but it would be a blow to the heart of Kait\u0101ia, it really would.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson said there was not a lot of other work on offer in the town, and no other employer like Juken New Zealand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can remember when Juken came into the picture and people were praying, literally, that they would buy it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is part of Kait\u0101ia\u2019s big dream, we were always sold on the idea that forestry was going to be our future … and the fact that a processing plant was built in Kait\u0101ia was regarded as a massive win for this community … and you just sort of think it will always be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson said an old, months-long workers\u2019 strike brought the town to a standstill.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one paid their bills, there was no money going around, it was a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strike was something former publican Dave Collard, who had a tavern nearby, remembered well.<\/p>\n

His premises were used for strike meetings.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Kait\u0101ia mills employ more than 200 people in a town of about 6000.<\/p>\n

\u2018Critical\u2019 for town<\/p>\n

Collard said he had served \u201cmany, many\u201d Juken timber workers over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely critical in terms of the town here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have enough challenges up here as it is without one of our biggest employers potentially closing down, I would hate to see something like that, there\u2019s [got] to be an alternative somewhere, or a remedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what is real scary about this is we\u2019re seeing it all over New Zealand, look at the places that have closed up – the frozen veggies people, sawmills, all sorts where people work for years and years and years, it is very much a reality and if we\u2019re not thinking about it I think we\u2019ve got our heads buried in the sand.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been a raft of other mill closures around the country<\/a>, with many owners blaming high energy costs.<\/p>\n

The Far North District Council<\/a> and Northland Regional Council<\/a> were set to appeal for the Government to intervene in Kait\u0101ia.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeriously, we\u2019re going to think about it big time,\u201d New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said at Parliament.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew Zealand First leader Winston Peters. Photo \/ RNZ, Mark Papalii<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it\u2019s not the first time we have done that, both Shane Jones and myself, we\u2019ve kept close to that timber mill for a long long time in our political career.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re going to pay attention to it … it is a concern and we\u2019ll look seriously at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juken New Zealand said it was looking at whether the two mills could keep operating \u201cunder a different structure\u201d which included a sale or a joint venture.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are taking the mills to market to assess whether there is interest from potential buyers,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur focus is on testing whether there is a viable pathway that would allow the mills to continue operating and to preserve employment where possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company said in the meantime, operations were continuing as normal at its Kait\u0101ia mills with no immediate changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Juken New Zealand said it had been working over several years to improve the finances of its two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[52056,5195,8834,33452,12765,34955,60157,9858,189194,18839,111,43,139,69,5413,530,5659,57343,2951,1533,6038],"class_list":["post-358362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-baker","tag-be","tag-big","tag-devastated","tag-employer","tag-gates","tag-graaf","tag-if","tag-juken","tag-kaitia","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peter","tag-residents","tag-say","tag-shuts","tag-town","tag-will","tag-wilson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}