New Zealand steel fabricator Integrator Maintenance Group has cut jobs, with dumped Chinese steel being blamed.
Fairfax reports that five production welders were made redundant at IMG last week. The local industry has been under cost pressures from an influx of Chinese exports.
“There’s no tariffs on this imported product, there’s no consistent quality checks,” Joe Gallagher, national industry organiser from manufacturing union E tu, told Fairfax.
Most Chinese imports had previously been unprocessed steel, but beam products were starting to appear, he said.
For the year to June 2010, 85,000 tonnes of steel were imported from Chinese. For the year to June 2016, the number was 183,000 tonnes.
Dumping is a growing concern for NZ steel manufacturers, with Pacific Steel last month applying for an investigation into alleged dumping.