Fifty per cent of Enztec staff get the boot (Stuff.co.nz)
Funding difficulties for its United States parent has forced Christchurch medical device manufacturer Enztec to lay off nearly half its staff at its Sockburn site.
In April last year, Enztec had about 44 staff and said it was on a growth path. It had invested close to $1 million in new equipment and was looking to hire three more staff.
Enztec general manager Stephen O’Neill said the layoffs were due to Enztec’s parent holding company and sole shareholder, United States-based Orthopaedic Synergy Inc (OSI), experiencing “funding difficulties”.
“It is very, very sad,” O’Neill said.
“There’s been a backing off from growth and funding difficulties in our parent company in the US and that’s led to us having to do a restructuring process and cutbacks here.”
He did not want to comment on why or how OSI had experienced funding difficulties.
The layoffs had been taking place during three weeks and the process was nearly complete.
About 22 positions were being made redundant, some of which were already vacant, O’Neill said.
Staff across all parts of the company, which designs and manufactures instruments used in orthopaedic surgery, were being let go.
O’Neill said staff had known of the funding issues for some time but the official restructuring process had only started three weeks ago.
Orthopaedic Synergy Inc, based in Raynham, Massachusetts, is the parent holding company for three companies. They are Massachusetts-based OMNIlife Science Inc, a medical device design, manufacture and distribution company, French orthopaedic surgery software and technology company Praxim Inc, based in La Tronche, and Enztec.
“The aim is Enztec consolidates and grows stronger again, and that’s dependant on the group that we’re part of.
“The whole group is in the process of looking at its costs and becoming more financially viable.”
Asked whether there were plans for further layoffs, O’Neill said there were no plans at this stage for further redundancies.
O’Neill did not want to comment on what redundancy packages staff would receive.
Redundancies would start to take effect from the end of this week.
“We’re very very sad too, given the success and the growth we’ve had in what is a great little business, that we have to go through this sort of thing.”
Enztec had been successful, but had been increasingly reliant on its parent company during the last 12 months.
“So when the group has funding difficulties and backs off on its growth it affects us quite quickly.”
The companies in the group were complementary and intertwined, he said.
Now for Enztec it was business as usual but with reduced capacity.
There was still a lot of opportunity in the orthopaedics market, O’Neill said.