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General Motors to shut down Thailand plant for two months
Uzbekistan News.Net
Thursday 20th November, 2008 (IANS)
In one of the first blows to be felt from the 'Hamburger Crisis' in Thailand, General Motors Thursday announced plans to close its Thailand plant for two months, paying employees 75 percent of their wages.
'If we don't close down we will have an oversupply,' said GM spokesman Chartchai Suwannasevok, confirming the US giant's plan to close its plant in Rayong province for the months of December and January.
GM's 2,000 Thai employees will have to take a 25 percent pay cut during the suspension period and the company has offered 258 employees early retirement with 10 months pay, in preparation for a slowdown in 2009.
GM's Rayong plant has a capacity to produce 130,000 units per annum, but this year's sales are estimated at 100,000 units.
The plant assembles and manufacturers GM Colorado pickups, Captiva SUVs, Optra sedans and Aveo compact cars, mostly for the export markets.
Thailand is a major automobile assembly hub in South-East Asia, manufacturing an estimated 1.4 million units this year, more than half of which were destined for exports.
The local industry, which has attracted all the major Japanese auto manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Isuzu along with US giants GM and Ford, employs an estimated 500,000 Thais.
Thailand is expected to suffer massive unemployment next year as its export industries dry up, due to falling demand in the US, European Union and Japan, the kingdom's three main markets.
'With orders for 2009 down 20 to 30 percent, Thai factories in all sectors are expected to lay-off at least 500,000 employees next year,' said Thaveekij Jaturajarernkul, chairman of the labour committee and the Federation of Thai Industries.
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Comments on this story
BadBob
11-20-08, 10:59 AM |
General Motors to shut down Thailand plant for two months
GM needs to close that Tailand Plant for good. Bring those jobs back home and pay a comparative wage. A job at comparative wage would be better than no job at all. Anybody making more than $45 per hour should be able to pay for their own insurance. The unions have broken every company that they have been involved with, just look at the auto makers. The unions used to do what they were set up for in the 30’S & 40’S, but not they just protect the screw off employee and use unions dues as they see fit.
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GoodBob
11-20-08, 12:35 PM |
Maybe if GM(and other American companies) didn’t design such poor models, they wouldn’t be in this mess. The US had a tendency to cater to fads- they rode the SUV one to death.
Keeping the jobs in the US and raising the wages would raise the price of the vehicles, and lessen and already low amount of units sold.
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Thought provoker
11-20-08, 02:17 PM |
What goes around......................
GM should move their headquarters to Canada or Germany and close all those old dinosaur plants in the US. How can they compete with old plants full of old machinery? All the new foreign plants here got hundreds of millions of dollars from states that bid for all those new jobs. GM seems to get much more respect and admiration from foreign countries than they do here in the good old USA, the free market of the world. Can we wait for the new cheaper cars from China to arrive?
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