F.C.A. cuts workforce

Press, 16 June 1979, Page 19

F.C.A. cuts workforce

INZPA Adelaide j Finance Corporation of i Australia, Ltd, has cut its (workforce by 20 per cent, but says no further retrenchments are planned. j However, the company’s (general manager (Mr D A. Baines) said that he could [not guarantee the future. I F.C.A., the troubled finlance subsidiary of the Bank ! of Adelaide, has slashed its i staff to 323 by the retrenchment of 79 of its staff from its activities throughout Australia. The company has branches in all capital cities except Darwin, and has a further nine offices in other states apart from its Adelaide activities. The retrenchments have been made at all levels from senior management to middle management and junior staff. Major Australian trading banks and the Reserve Bank last month provided the Bank of Adelaide with isAust6oM to overcome its I problems. The A.N.Z. Banking Group

has since come up with an offer for the Bank of Adelaide. F.C.A definitely needed the remaining staff to run its current activities, Mr Baines said. He said the merger plan was not to blame for the retrenchments. F.C.A. had been looking at its staff situation for some months after the finance company’s activitiy began to dwindle and did not appear likely to return to more normal levels. The company was sorry to lose the services of so many people, but it had to look at overhead costs in relation to the lower level of activity, he said. F.C.A. believed it had made very fair severance arrangements, and had tried to minimise hardships for retrenched staff. The A.N Z. Bank announced last week that a review of staff requirements at F.C.A. would be made before any take-over of the Bank of Adelaide. The A.N.Z. said that in the long-term it intended to preserve the best possible employment opportunities for the remaining staff.