THE NEWS WRAP: Holden threatens to end Australian production over pay dispute

Holden managing director Mike Devereux has threatened to end car production in Australia if employees at its Adelaide plant fail to accept a pay cut.

The secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union’s vehicles division, Dave Smith, blames Tony Abbott, claiming the announcement “smacks of the Coalition behind the scenes”.

However, according to Devereux, it costs Holden parent company General Motors $3750 more to build a car in Australia than overseas, with $2000 of the total due to labour costs.

“Australia is among the most expensive places to build cars anywhere on the planet. Our geographic isolation, the cost of sourcing local components and our high labour rates mean we pay a significant premium to manufacture cars here compared to importing,” Devereux says.

Facebook hits a million active advertisers

Facebook has reached a new milestone, with the social media giant claiming that a million active advertisers globally have used its service in the past 28 days.

“Most small business owners start off as Facebook users, then migrate to become page owners, and from there migrate to become advertisers,” says Facebook director of small business Dan Levy.

According to market research firm eMarketing, small advertisers in the US spent around $US32 billion on online advertising during 2012.

Pacific Brands reveals international expansion and omni-channel retailing plans

Pacific Brands chief executive John Pollaers has cited product innovation, international expansion and a move into omni-channel retailing as key future moves for his company’s Bonds and Berlei brands.

“We will deliver higher impact innovation in the core categories but we’ll also look to expand into other categories and then we’ll start – not rush at – laying down some of the ground work for the development of an international footprint over time,” Pollaers.

“[Outlet stores are] an avenue for the distribution of brands that haven’t traditionally been at wholesale distribution. We’re able to… expand our broader customer base and because we don’t have any legacy retail infrastructure we’re able to move to a streamlined multi-channel structure straight away.”

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 0.92% to 15,319.15. The Aussie dollar is down to US94.81 cents.