Nearly 120 jobs on the line at Carter Holt Harvey site in Tokoroa

Tuesday, 16 September 2025

Carter Holt Harvey is planning to close its plywood manufacturing plant in Tokoroa, at the cost of up to 119 full-time jobs.

The announcement comes after the Kinleith pulp and paper mill in Tokoroa announced the closure its paper-making operation earlier this year, with about 150 jobs lost.

E tū delegate Andrew Dobbs, who has worked at Carter Holt Harvey in Tokoroa for 24 years, said staff were devastated.

“It’s just really sad. We knew things were tough, but I didn’t expect them to stop manufacturing altogether. You’d say people are feeling sad and depressed – it’s not quite a closure, but there will be so few people left there, making nothing, just reprocessing imports to send to market.

“Basically, imported product is just too cheap for us to compete with, that’s the guts of it. Personally I don’t want to move out of town, but that might be the only choice we’ve got.

“You already know that the pulp and paper mill has cut jobs, they’ve either moved out or are looking for jobs. Now there’s going to be a whole lot more people looking for jobs locally, but there aren’t that many jobs at present, not for that many people.”

The E Tū union spokesperson for the site, Red Middlemiss, told the Waikato Times that staff and union members were informed on Monday that their jobs were on the line, and that the news came as a shock.

Middlemiss said Carter Holt Harvey has already been importing plywood from Australia and a number of other countries, “and has found out that they can import it cheaper than they can make it here”.

South Waikato Mayor Gary Petley told RNZ he was shocked.

“This doesn’t help us one little bit,” he said. “I believe that staff were notified yesterday and were given time to go home and go over those issues with their family…”

Petley told RNZ it sounded like a decision had already been made. He said Tokoroa was resilient, but help was needed from the Government.

This comes as Carter Holt Harvey announced last week it will close its sawmill in Eves Valley, with the loss of 142 jobs.

E tū national secretary Rachel Mackintosh said that closure was a strategic decision that ignored the human cost.

“This isn’t a company going broke – they’ve chosen to centralise operations in Kawerau,” Mackintosh said.

“But we’re talking about people’s lives here, and it’s cold comfort for more than 140 workers who are now facing unemployment in a region already hit hard.

“These workers, many of whom have put decades of their lives into the mill, are now caught in the crossfire of a corporate decision.”

Carter Holt Harvey has been contacted for comment on the Tokoroa plant closure.