The head of the Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce says the recent job losses in the region are the worst she can recall in almost 30 years. <\/p>\n
On Friday Sealord announced plans to make part of its fishing operation seasonal, proposing to cut 59 roles<\/a>. <\/p>\n Sealord chief executive Doug Paulin said it’s been a difficult three years for the company and it’s not the news he wanted to share. <\/p>\n “I know a lot of these people, I’ve worked with them for the 15 years I’ve been at Sealord and it’s incredibly tough. It’s a pretty sh***y thing to have to do.” <\/p>\n It comes after a previous announcement from Sealord earlier this month that it plans to close its coated fish factory<\/a>, resulting in 79 job losses. <\/p>\n The Eves Valley Sawmill in Tasman will close<\/a> later this year resulting in 142 job losses and around 65 jobs are expected to go at Proper Crisps<\/a> if the Nelson factory operations move to Auckland. <\/p>\n Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce chief executive Ali Boswijk said it’s been a roller coaster few months for the region. <\/p>\n “I’ve lived in Nelson for 30 years next year and I don’t have any memory of it being like this at all,” she said.<\/p>\n Boswijk said many in the region are holding out for summer as that brings in more seasonal work. <\/p>\n “If it was in the middle of winter, it would be a whole lot harder for sure.”<\/p>\n She said the potential job losses will “absolutely” lead to people leaving the area in search of work.<\/p>\n “If you put yourself in their shoes, you’re going to be looking at every opportunity.” <\/p>\n Paulin said low export prices and rising costs like power and water have made the last three years challenging. <\/p>\n “I do think it’s still going to be a tough year next year and we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens in the world,” he said.<\/p>\n He said Sealord even considered stopping all its land-based operations in Nelson which would have had a huge impact on the region. <\/p>\n “It was a difficult decision because there’s still a gap to what we actually need this part of our business to do, but I’m willing to give it a go.” <\/p>\n Infometrics economist Brad Olsen said there are common issues in some sectors across the country. <\/p>\n “We’re seeing higher operating costs for a lot of manufacturing businesses. At the same time, prices for what those businesses receive for those products aren’t keeping at quite the same pace,” he explained.<\/p>\n “With all of that we’re seeing a consolidation in the manufacturing sector. Nelson Tasman seems to be wearing that hit a whole lot more than other regions.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of the Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce says the recent job losses in the region are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,1122,91,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-52542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-employment","tag-nelson","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52542","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=52542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}