IT has has been boom and gloom on the district jobs front this week.

Twenty-five jobs have been created at sport surface specialists Tiger AG on the Ikon Trading Estate, Hartlebury.

However, 30 have been axed at Kidderminster wire-making firm Romwire after it fell into the hands of receivers for the second time in little more than a year.

New Zealand firm Astrograss, which has been running for 20 years, has launched Tiger AG as its European HQ. It will manufacture and sell artificial grass surfaces at its £1 million, 42,000 sq ft factory.

Sales and marketing co-ordinator Charley Heseltine said: "We have come here to utilise the expertise of the carpet industry. We have taken on staff who were made redundant by Georgian Carpets. The manufacturing process is very similar.

"We are up-and-running but the business is not at its peak and we will be looking to expand. We are already receiving inquiries from abroad.

"The market is very buoyant at the moment and demand has been outstripping supply."

In keeping with its home links, New Zealand High Commissioner the Rt Hon Paul East will open the factory on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the losses at Romwire, which supplies specialist materials to the automotive industry, came as a bombshell to workers.

Employees were told about the cuts within hours of Birmingham-based receivers Ernst & Young being called in on Friday.

The redundancies were blamed on a purchasing U-turn by a major customer, Goodyear.

The Stourport Road business, which employs 200, traded as N-S Eurowire until June last year when it was bought from administrative receivers by the Lichfield-based ROM Group.

Administrative receiver William Tacon said the remaining 170 jobs are in the balance while he attempts to sell the firm as a going concern.

He said: "I am working with management to develop our continuing trading strategy and, in the meantime, my team is actively contacting a number of parties who we believe may be interested in a takeover."

ROM Group chairman Mike Wallis said Romwire was regrettably the only factory struggling to trade sufficiently.

He said: "After we bought the Kidderminster business, ironically partly as a diversification from dependence on the construction industry, we invested in it with a view to building it up.

"We had some successes but, unfortunately, one of our largest customers, Goodyear, cut back heavily on purchasing schedules - from the expected 750 tonnes to virtually nothing."

He added: "The business incurred substantial losses to the extent it would have needed continuing cash injections to keep it going.

"We couldn't justify this to our shareholders at a time when our core business is growing fast."