End of line for Revlon staff in NZ

Revlon will close its sole New Zealand manufacturing plant in Northcote at the end of the month, laying off about a dozen staff initially.

By the end of the year, as the company winds down its operations, 45 staff would be out of work, Revlon's Sydney-based spokeswoman, Janet Muggivan, said.

The first wave of factory workers to be laid off were handed their redundancy notices last week.

The cosmetics company indicated in August it would be closing its manufacturing and distribution arms, retaining only a trade marketing and sales team.

Some of its products will be made by third parties and others will be imported from Australia.

New York-based Revlon this week announced its eighth straight quarterly loss, and plans to close plants in Canada and the United States, with the loss of about 1100 jobs. But it said as many as 700 North American jobs could be relocated to other plants.

US analysts said the company was hurt by retailers' inventory cuts, tougher competition in the US, slumping sales in Europe and Latin America and the hangover of $US1.8 billion ($4.6 billion) in debt from financier Ron Perelman's 1985 takeover.