Fletcher Building will sack 120 employees from its Australian insulation businesses.The building and construction giant today announced it had scaled back production at its glasswool insulation plant at Dandenong in Melbourne following the suspension of o
Fletcher Building will sack 120 employees from its Australian insulation businesses.
The building and construction giant today announced it had scaled back production at its glasswool insulation plant at Dandenong in Melbourne following the suspension of operations at its Rooty Hill plant in Sydney in March.
Both sets of layoffs were pegged on the cancelling of the Australian government’s stimulus package in February.
The company said the termination resulted in major industry participants, including Fletcher Insulation, holding significant excess inventory at lower demand rates.
The stimulus package which began in February last year was supposed to spend $A3.9 billion insulating 2.7 million houses by the end of next year.
The programme was scaled back to 1.8 million homes, but when it was cancelled, 1.1 million homes had been insulated.
Shifts at Dandenong will be reduced as a result.
Fletcher Building advised its operating earnings for the Australian insulation business for the full year were forecase to be $12 million, compared with operating earnings of $23 million in the six months to December 31.
The forecast for the full year includes one off-costs of $18 million for redundancy and inventory management costs.
However, the company has confirmed its guidance provided at its half year earnings announcement in February. Net earnings after tax are expected to fall within the analysts’ consensus range of $278 million to $303 million.
