REDUNDANCIES – AUSTRALIA

Printing body blasts Ovato over restructure, redundancies

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Original article by David Ross
The Australian – Page: 13 & 19 : 12-Jan-21

Listed printing and marketing services firm Ovato has attracted further scrutiny over its restructuring plan. Taxpayers will bear most of the cost of 330 redundancies at Ovato, via the federal government’s Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme; this follows the company’s decision to transfer these workers to corporate entitles that have insufficient funds to pay creditors. Members of the print industry have described Ovato’s restructuring plan as an ‘asset strip’, while Print & Visual Communication Association president Walter Kuhn says the government should have stepped in and insisted that Ovato must pay all redundancy costs.

CORPORATES
OVATO LIMITED – ASX OVT, PRINT AND VISUL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

New Hope cuts jobs, dividend after loss

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Original article by Perry Williams
The Australian – Page: 16 : 23-Sep-20

Coal producer New Hope Corporation has posted a net loss of $156.7m for the year to 31 July, following a $210.4m profit for the previous financial year. The latest result was marred by writedowns totalling $346m, including a $110.7m impairment charge against its New Acland thermal coal mine. New Hope has also retrenched 175 workers at the New Acland mine, whose proposed expansion is subject to a legal challenge from environmentalists. A total of 23 jobs have also been cut at its head office and Brisbane coal terminal, while shareholders will not receive a final dividend.

CORPORATES
NEW HOPE CORPORATION LIMITED – ASX NHC

Lack of flexible work is keeping Australian women at home

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Original article by
SBS News – Page: Online : 18-Sep-20

Industries that are disproportionately staffed by women have been the hardest hit by the coronavirus-driven recession, including retail and hospitality. Women have also have had to deal with most of the burden of remote learning and caring for family. Women who were made redundant are finding that a lack of flexible employment is forcing them to choose between returning to work and caring for their family. Adam Gregory, LinkedIn’s senior director for Australia and New Zealand, says the longer that women have to make this "impossible choice", the harder they will have to work in order to get back into the workforce.

CORPORATES
LINKEDIN CORPORATION

Don’t vote down Bain out of spite: unionist

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Original article by Robyn Ironside
The Australian – Page: 15 : 10-Aug-20

Virgin Australia CEO Paul Scurrah said recently that it would retrench a third of its workforce to help it return to profit and to survive the COVID-19 pandemic. Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association secretary Steve Purvinas says he is concerned to hear talk that some of those who will lose their job have indicated they plan to vote against the airline’s deal with Bain Capital. He contends a ‘no’ vote would amount to spite, while Purvinas says backing an alternative proposal to Bain’s that has been put forward by bondholders would not help employees.

CORPORATES
VIRGIN AUSTRALIA HOLDINGS LIMITED – ASX VAH, AUSTRALIAN LICENSED AIRCRAFT ENGINEERS’ ASSOCIATION, BAIN CAPITAL LLC

330,000 jobs at risk in retail, building

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Original article by Adam Creighton, Richard Ferguson
The Australian – Page: 5 : 10-Aug-20

McKinsey has warned that a second wave of coronavirus-induced job losses could affect between 270,000 and 640,000 Australian workers by March. The consulting firm expects sectors such as retailing and construction to be hardest hit as government support measures are scaled back. McKinsey forecasts that an additional 215,000 jobs could be lost in the retail sector by March, on top of the 42,000 that were shed in the June quarter; the construction sector in turn faces the loss of up to 205,000 jobs by March, having shed 46,000 jobs in the three months to June.

CORPORATES
McKINSEY AND COMPANY

Hard landing for Qantas workers

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Original article by Robyn Ironside, Damon Kitney
The Australian – Page: 13 & 16 : 26-Jun-20

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce will remain at the helm for another three years to oversee the national carrier’s coronavirus recovery plan. This will include reducing costs by $15bn over three years and shedding 6,000 employees across its operations. The job cuts will include more than 1,000 cabin crew, some 1,500 ground crew and 630 engineers. The redundancies will cost about $600m in total, while the 15,000 employees who were stood down earlier in 2020 will not return to work in the near-term. ACTU president Michele O’Neil has criticised the job cuts, accusing Qantas of abandoning its workers at "their time of greatest need". Meanwhile, Qantas will increase its liquidity via a $1.9bn capital raising.

CORPORATES
QANTAS AIRWAYS LIMITED – ASX QAN, ACTU

ABC axes flagship roles for digital

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Original article by Steve Jackson
The Australian – Page: 7 : 25-Jun-20

About 70 jobs in the ABC’s news division will be cut under the five-year plan, as the public broadcaster shifts its focus to digital on on-demand content. This will result in a significant reduction in original reporting produced by its current affairs programs. The ABC’s news analysis and investigations teams will also be scaled back, while the position of chief economics correspondent is expected to be axed. ABC News director Gaven Morris has confirmed that fewer new episodes of ‘Australian Story’ and ‘Foreign Correspondent’ will be produced due to the budget cuts.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Tough love necessary, says News

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Original article by Max Mason
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 22 : 18-Jun-20

News Corporation’s CEO Robert Thomson says the media group’s decision to axe the print editions of 112 regional and community newspapers was not taken lightly. The bulk of the titles will become digital-only publications, but 36 will be discontinued completely. Thomson says this was necessary to ensure the viability of the titles that will become digital-only. The number of News Corp journalists working on regional and community mastheads will be reduced from more than 1,200 to just 375.

CORPORATES
NEWS CORPORATION – ASX NWS, NEWS CORP AUSTRALIA PTY LTD

More jobs to go at News Corp in metro restructure

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Original article by Zoe Samios
The Age – Page: Online : 10-Jun-20

News Corp Australia has advised that plans to centralise the production and editorial operations of its metropolitan mastheads will result in job losses. The job cuts will affect staff of ‘The Daily Telegraph’ and the ‘Herald Sun’, with news content to be shared across the two newspapers. The move follows News Corp’s recent decision to discontinue the print editions of many regional and community newspapers, which affected more than 600 jobs. There will also be some job cuts at its flagship national masthead, ‘The Australian’.

CORPORATES
NEWS CORP AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, NEWS CORPORATION – ASX NWS

ABC pushes ahead with job cuts in arduous year

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Original article by Zoe Samios
The Sydney Morning Herald – Page: Online : 10-Jun-20

ABC MD David Anderson has informed staff that budget cuts will force the public broadcaster to retrench more than 200 employees. Anderson also indicated that the ABC will initially seek voluntary redundancies in divisions that are likely to lose at least 10 employees, although forced redundancies will also be necessary. The ABC will releases its five-year plan later in June; it was delayed earlier in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The federal government imposed a three-year funding freeze on the ABC in 2019.

CORPORATES
AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION