172 council jobs lost

Last updated 17:06 29/04/2011

 

About 170 council staff will lose their jobs under council redundancy plans.

Christchurch City Council staff employed at facilities that were extensively damaged in the 22 February earthquake and remain closed indefinitely were this week advised their roles would be disestablished, a council statement said.

Following the earthquake, a number of council facilities are closed and are unlikely to re-open in the foreseeable future.

A total of 172 staff, most based at the damaged QEII Park and Centennial Recreation and Sport Centres, have received change proposals, the statement said.

The plans outline why the roles have been disestablished and opportunities for re-deployment within the Council. All staff will have the opportunity to comment on the proposed changes.

General Manager Community Services Michael Aitken said the Council was committed to preserving as many jobs as possible and was currently looking at options for re-deploying affected staff to another role or another part of the organisation. Redundancy would be a last resort.

"To secure their jobs, staff may have to accept a different role to what they were doing before the earthquake. The Council will be matching skills with areas where work needs to be done post-earthquake. In a bid to secure as many jobs as possible, the Council has also put on hold much of its recruitment while it looks at all options.

"We recognise this is an extremely difficult time for our staff, many of whom are going through personal hardship at this time, but we are certainly aiming to minimise the number of redundancies and to protect jobs wherever possible."

Affected staff have been mainly working in Civil Defence roles since the earthquake occurred.

Of the 172 affected staff, 156 were based at QEII Park and Centennial Recreation and Sports Centres, 12 at QEII Park Pre-school and four at Our City O-Tautahi and the Canterbury Provincial Buildings.