Manufacturing Update 2

June 27, 2017

Australian salaries are set to increase by 2.8 per cent this year, according to the Australian Institute of Management (AIM)’s annual salary survey.
This figure has fallen from 4.1 per cent growth in 2012.
Considering how tight profit margins are in FMCG manufacturing, the predicted salary increase came as a surprise.

Australia’s $126 billion food, beverage and grocery industries have significantly increased by more than 30 per cent in seven years, from 2007 to 2014.
“Employing over 300,000 Australians, the sector’s Industry Value Add of $29 billion was almost three times higher than the next largest manufacturing subsector – machinery and equipment and fabricated metal.” Said AFGC Director of Economics Tanya Barden.
“While domestic conditions remain challenging, food and grocery processing is an area of strong export growth with an 11% surge in food and beverage exports to $26bn last year. These results show a huge potential for future growth.”

Around 40,000 new manufacturing jobs – recorded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) – were presented in a recently published paper at the Manufacturing Matters conference held at Parliament House, in Canberra, on Wednesday.
Co-authored by Jim Stanford and Tom Swann at the Centre for Future Work and the Australia Institute, the paper Manufacturing: a moment of opportunity offers promise of a brighter future for the industry in Australia.
The paper reviews the qualitative features as to why manufacturing is a “strategically important sector” and argues that the industry should be an “active target for policy” within Australian leadership.

Just ahead of its $460 million takeover of the Mondelez spread business, Bega Cheese is launching a $160 million capital raising to shore up it capital base.
Bega says it wants to be prepared to take advantage of future food and dairy growth opportunities and hopes to raise about $122.5m from an institutional placement.
“This capital raising gives us the financial strength and flexibility to grow our dairy and food businesses as part of our vision to be a great Australian food company,” said executive chairman, Barry Irvin.