Today the Auswide Board announced 12 more redundancies across the organisation affecting full-time and part-time jobs.
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The Board has decided to discontinue Training Services and the organisation is looking at options for existing students. As a consequence staff in the Corporate Area and Training Services have been made redundant.
Spokesperson for the Board, Libby Hepburn, said she was shattered at having to inform good staff that they were no longer needed.
"We were hopeful that a merger with like-minded and larger organisations could have put us on a strong footing but then it was not possible to organise it partly because of recently introduced government regulations."
Auswide, like many similar service providers in this sector, has been faced with a significant contraction of business over the last 18 months due to changes in government policies and the inability of Auswide to secure renewal of current contracts or secure new business.
Ms Hepburn was unable to say what the future might hold for Auswide Merimbula. "I can't answer...it is very fluid. Nothing is straightforward; today government business is all about the consolidation of larger organisation and we don't fit that mould. "It is with a heavy heart and great disappointment that the Board has had to make this announcement. I am sad for all those employees; they are the victims of changing circumstances.They were good people working at Auswide. The sad thing is that they had given really good service. It was service by local people for local people," Ms Hepburn said.
The Board is now in discussion with several organisations and Commonwealth and State governments to secure the transfer of some current contracts/services and associated staff.
Meetings have been held with staff directly impacted regarding the developments.
“We have been working hard to minimize the impact of these decisions," Ms Hepburn said, “all efforts are being made to transfer students currently undertaking courses with Auswide to other Training Provider.”
In early July Auswide CEO Kevin Stevens lost his job (see story here) and over the last two years the Auswide Merimbula workforce has been slashed from 200 to 100 and with today's announcement further inroads have been made into that number.