F&P creates 50 call centre jobs

Fisher & Paykel Appliances is expanding its call centre operations in New Zealand more than a year after slashing hundreds of manufacturing jobs at its Mosgiel plant.

The whiteware maker will today officially open a new product design and call centre in Dunedin, adding around 50 new staff to the 1200 people it already employs throughout the country.

A further 110 design engineers, who were previously at the Mosgiel manufacturing site, will also be based at the new facility.

Fisher & Paykel investor relations vice-president Paul Brockett said it had decided to expand its call centre operations in New Zealand because it was cheaper and it believed local people could offer a better service.

"We wanted to keep it Kiwi, rather than sending it to somewhere like India."

Brockett said the new operation had employed some of the former staff.

Fisher & Paykel announced in April last year that it would cut 430 jobs at the Mosgiel plant as part of its global manufacturing strategy to shift most of its production to lower-cost countries.

The jobs were phased out in March this year and the plant shut in June, with manufacturing shifted to a combination of existing sites in Thailand and Italy and a new factory in Mexico.

The call centre had already taken on 40 people and a further eight to 10 would also be hired, Brockett said.

The appliance maker has had a difficult year, having to put staff on a nine-day fortnight while cutting the wages of some executives.

It struggled with a burgeoning debt problem until a deal was done with Chinese manufacturer Haier to buy a 20 per cent stake in the firm in May as part of an $189 million capital raising.