160 UK jobs to go as Cussons factory shuts

Imperial Leather soap maker PZ Cussons today said it was closing a soap factory with the loss of 160 jobs.

Cussons said it would shut the plant in Nottingham, England by 2007 and transfer production to a new factory in Thailand and an existing plant in Indonesia.

The group said two-thirds of the market for bar soap was now in Asia, with customers in the UK and Australia increasingly buying liquid soap products.

A spokeswoman for Cussons said it would gradually phase out production at the factory at New Basford in Nottingham, which the group bought in 1955.

Staff at the plant were told this morning and the company has begun consultations with trade unions, she said.

The company’s UK managing director, Philip Smyth, said it very much regretted the decision.

But he added: “However, as a global company, we need to secure our long-term competitive position in the bar soap market. Demand for bar soap has been changing in the UK as liquid products have become more and more popular.

“With great reluctance, we have decided to move production of all bar soaps to our plants in Thailand and Indonesia, while our UK facilities will concentrate on the growing liquid product sector.”

He added that the company was offering staff a “comprehensive range of support” including job search programmes.