KEY POINTS:
AgResearch is calling for voluntary redundancies as part of a range of measures being implemented to cut costs by $5 million this year.
As a Crown Research Institute, AgResearch is required to return a profit but was barely able to achieve this in the financial year ended in June.
Chief executive Andrew West said a $2 million cut to corporate operational expenditure had already been made but that the overall savings target could not be met without job losses.
The measures should put the organisation on track for a "more satisfactory profit" this financial year, he said.
However, the union which represents scientists in the firing line slammed the job cuts, saying it was devastating for the staff and "a waste of talent and investment".
Public Service Association (PSA) secretary Richard Wagstaff said cutting staff may provide a short-term boost to the company's bottom line, but the country would suffer in the long run through the loss of income-generating research.
He said it was not known how many jobs were in danger, nor in which areas the cuts were likely to be made, but he expected dozens of workers would be affected.
AgResearch said that if not enough people put up their hands for redundancy, it would conduct its own "targeted" reviews of scientific groups.
Dr West said a number of key factors had recently combined to force AgResearch to tighten its belt, including a significant downturn in its important client industries of sheep and beef; the institute's long-term commitment to employing under-funded scientists and maintaining unfunded flocks and herds of rare animal genetics now exceeding its capacity to do so, and recent costs of commercialisation.
As well as cutting costs, Dr West said the institute was systematically increasing internal productivity and targeting annual revenue growth of about 8 per cent.
He said scientists who retained their jobs would continue to receive pay increases of an average, annual rate of 6.5 per cent to ensure that their pay was competitive with other professions in New Zealand.
"Times like these are never easy for an organisation," Dr West said.
"While it is, without question, hard for staff the institute will be in a stronger position moving forward and this will hopefully provide staff that remain more certainty for the future."
Applications for redundancy close on October 22, with results announced on October 31.
- NZPA
