After confirming the Otago redundancy round on Wednesday, infrastructure company Downer released some further details.
The employees involved in the consultation were from construction, maintenance and surfacing divisions based in Dunedin and Oamaru, Downer's national communications and brand manager, Brooke Dahlberg, said in a statement.
"Downer has over 19,000 people across our Australian and New Zealand businesses and our employee numbers vary, depending on the number and size of current projects.''
Separately, Chorus announced yesterday another company would be taking over Downer's fibre installations around Wellington, Kapiti Coast and Manawatu.
"Some employees'' would be affected.
Chorus expects Downer technicians will have opportunities to either move to replacement provider Visionstream or remain with Downer and continue work on the copper network.
Downer would continue to carry out fibre installations in the Hutt Valley and Wairarapa, Chorus said.
Ms Dahlberg said Downer had recently made redundancies in Australia across the mining and rail sectors.
Its mining division revenue was down 20.4% for the half year.
In February, Downer's first-half overall trading revenue was reported down 8.8% at $3.6billion.
Redundancies for the period cost more than $11.5million and more redundancies were expected, The Australian reported.
Downer intends to have more than 400 Otago staff following the local redundancies.
One Otago source believed the local redundancy round was "in response to the seasonality'' of some work contracts, going into winter conditions.
When asked, Ms Dahlberg said Downer's Otago managers were not available for comment, as the redundancies were an internal consultation and they were focused on working with the teams impacted.
