AUCKLAND – Air New Zealand has welcomed the New Zealand government’s offer to subsidise the wages of workers who cut their hours to save their jobs.
Under the Job Support Scheme the government will part-compensate larger companies which have brought in a nine-day working fortnight.
Air NZ CEO Rob Fyfe says that if the global economic turmoil caused Air New Zealand to further reduce capacity and consider redundancies, the airline would embrace the Government subsidised nine-day fortnight initiative.
“We would encourage employers, employees and unions to get behind this proposal and look at how they can contribute alongside government to help this approach succeed and preserve jobs,†Fyfe said.
Earlier this week Singapore Airlines put a proposal to its employees to take unpaid leave. The airline’s more than 14,000 employees have until the end of this month, to choose whether to apply for unpaid leave for terms ranging from one week to two years.
The Singapore carrier announced last month plans to cut its capacity by 11 percent in the coming fiscal year, beginning April 1.
