Job cuts at a mining equipment maker at Burnie in Tasmania’s north-west coast has added to a growing unemployment crisis.
The jobs of 60 casual workers at Caterpillar Underground Mining were axed yesterday.
It comes after the company shed about 100 contractors earlier this year.
The firm’s human resources manager Brett Smith says the cuts reflects the global downturn in mining.
“We definitely have had a decline in orders and our workforce matches the orders so…if the number of machines we build reduces, then we need to reduce our workforce,” he said.
“It’s basically that simple.”
Mr Smith says workers were not surprised.
“I’m not sure that too many of them are optimistic about opportunities in the north-west coast.”
Manufacturing Workers Union spokesman John Short says it is a tragedy.
He wants the Coalition to honour a Labor election commitment to support the company.
“They’re highly skilled and very committed to the company even though they were labour-hire workers, some of them have been working there a for a while.”
“The previous Labor Government offered I think it was $ 10 million in co-investment to help secure the jobs for the long-term and obviously what we’d be asking for is the new member for Braddon, Brett Whiteley, to be getting on the phone to Tony Abbott this morning to make sure that that $ 10 million is still going to be available.”
Mr Whiteley says Labor’s $ 10 million dollar pre-election promise to support Caterpillar would not have made a difference.
“I think for people to suggest that just throwing money at this particular situation would have saved these jobs I think is probably not a wise statement to make.”
Mr Whiteley says he has been told by businesses that structural reform is needed and he will meet Caterpillar’s managers tomorrow.
The state’s north and north-west regions have now lost more than 1,000 manufacturing jobs since 2010.
Burnie Mayor Steve Kons is worried about the wider impact.
“One of those jobs creates another five so it is disappointing, it will certainly impact on the region,” he said.
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