New Zealand’s Thames Timber has been forced to lay off one-third of its staff because of falling exports to the US and a rising New Zealand dollar.
Seventy workers were made redundant on the same day that the company won a forest industry “training company of the year” award.
Around 90% of the mill’s raw timber production was exported to the US before the market began to dry up and the mill has also had to cope with the New Zealand dollar rising from 47 cents to more that 58 cents against the US dollar.
