Melbourne is “largely a casual hire operation”, the company said, with a fleet of 24. One crane is being redeployed in Western Australia and 17 others are being sold. These are either small capacity models or cranes reaching the end of their natural service life and “no longer fit with Boom’s fleet management plans”.. It is anticipated the sale will generate AUD$3m ($1.9).
The 31 affected employees are to be offered career transition support through career counselling, financial planning, job searches and retirement planning.
The remaining cranes and personnel are to be merged with Boom Logistics’ tower crane division based at Laverton, while the company’s properties across Victoria will be consolidated down to two. The mobile crane operation in Morwell is unaffected by the changes,
Last year, the company admitted that operations in Western Australia had underperformed despite favourable business conditions, with excessive equipment cross hire from third parties a particular concern. Boom also said that systems integration and management turnover had interfered with the effective merging of Moorland Hire into the Sherrin business. This resulted in the over accrual of revenue during the March quarter, which has since been identified and corrected.
