Cat dealer cuts 350 jobs

WesTrac provides Caterpillar machinery to miners and builders and is a division of Seven Group Holdings, chaired by Kerry Stokes. It has announced plans to restructure its NSW and ACT operations because of “challenging market conditions” by cutting 10 per cent of its 3500 workforce.

“It is anticipated that the restructure will result in approximately 350 redundancies across WesTrac’s NSW/ACT business which will be implemented in the next month at an approximate cost of $10 million,” the company said in a statement. 

Unions believe around 100 jobs will go from WesTrac’s new Tomago headquarters with a number from its mining-related business at Mount Thorley. There are estimated job losses of around 200 from the Hunter workforce out of a total of about 700, according to unions. However, up to 150 of those workers could be offered jobs elsewhere with the company.

Unions met with the heavy machinery dealer and are working with employees on possible options, including voluntary redundancies.

WesTrac has moved aggressively in recent years to expand its operations and buy out competitors. Its Tomago complex was opened in July last year, with 450 people employed on a 23-hectare site containing 12 buildings.

Australian Workers Union branch secretary Richard Downie said the unions were pushing to save the jobs of dozens of apprentices caught up in the cuts. Downie said one bright spot was the relocation allowances that WesTrac was offering to employees who moved to an estimated 150 vacancies in NSW and Western Australia. Downie added the union will encourageg employees to think about applying for the positions elsewhere in NSW and WA.

WesTrac said it had already introduced a series of efficiency and productivity initiatives over the past eight months in an effort to streamline its costs. “But these measures alone have not been sufficient in view of continuing challenging market conditions,” the company explained in its statement. 

WesTrac Australia employs more than 3500 employees across 30 branches in Western Australia, NSW and the ACT. The company?s problems follow a string of mining services companies announcing cutbacks and earnings downgrades. 

UGL, WorleyParsons and Transfield have all recently downgraded their earnings forecasts.  Downer EDI has also announced it will cut 185 jobs from its workforce in central Queensland and Glencore Xstrata has also announced 450 job cuts.