By James Wells

In an internal announcement to staff yesterday, Shiro Australia said it had restructured its workforce, with redundancies from the company’s appliance division, comprised of the Omega, Blanco and De Dietrich brands, and the successful redeployment of 20 staff members was also revealed.

According to Shriro Australia managing director, Mike Westrup, while the redundancies were regrettable, they were necessary for the next stage of the company’s future.

“Following a restructure in the appliance division, there are two redundancies resulting from the removal of one level of management,” Westrup told Current.com.au.

“With the divestment of JVC, Shriro was able to transfer 20 people for redeployment in other areas within the JVC Kenwood group,” he said.

“The JVC changeover is on track for 31 December 2011, where the impact will be minimal as will the integration of Hagemeyer Brands Australia into the Shriro computer system which will occur on the same date.”

Shriro announced its purchase of Hagemeyer on 1 July 2011. Since then, it has relinquished the JVC and Polaroid brands, completing exiting the consumer electronics categories it had bought into.