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Timberlands West Coast is making seven staff redundant as it restructures because it lacks enough timber.
Two new jobs would be advertised for specialist field staff skilled in forestry, so overall staff numbers would fall from 17 to 12, deputy chairman Martin Sawyers said.
That was less than half Timberlands' staff of 30 five years ago, when the government stopped West Coast native logging and set up Timberlands as a pinus radiata forester.
Staff were told of the job cuts about a week ago, and would work out the notice periods in their contracts, Mr Sawyers said.
The company would continue to talk to its shareholder, the Crown, about further restructuring.
"We have got some other ideas, or other suggestions, but they're with the shareholder at the moment for the shareholder to consider."
The lower staffing levels would give Timberlands enough manpower, but whether it had enough timber depended on other factors, he said. The company's previous staffing cuts had left it with enough staff to cope with 250,000 to 300,000 cu m of timber a year.
"Of course, we've discovered we've only got 150,000 cubic metres and we don't need that many staff -- we don't need 17 to be able to do that."
Timberlands announced three weeks ago it planned to restructure. The company also provides about 120 contracting jobs on the West Coast and supplies logs to about seven Coast sawmills employing around 400 people.
The state-owned enterprise made an $8.6 million after-tax loss last year, reflecting a downgrade in the value of its forests. About 20 per cent of the estate is in Buller, with other forests around Buller and the West Coast.
Timberlands chairman Ross Black told The News in Westport in April that Timberlands had little opportunity to make a profit for the next five years. However, he said Timberlands was "soundly and confidently financed for the foreseeable future" and was confident its shareholding ministers would come up with a longer-term structural solution.
He attributed the incorrect forest yield predictions to mistakes made by planners after the government stopped native logging on the West Coast in 2002. Timberlands' current problems went back to the old Forest Service, he said.
- NZPA
