GM to cut 8,000 jobs across Europe
General Motors announced 8,300 job losses across Europe today including 4,000 in Germany.
Among the cuts are the closure of an entire plant in Antwerp, Belgium, a casualty of the “tough reality” of a shrinking European car market.
The cuts were a blow for the 2,600 Opel workers in Antwerp and related automotive supply companies that employ 10,000 workers.
When GM planned to sell its European car making unit to Canada’s Magna and Russia’s Sberbank last year, the bidders said they would close Antwerp down. GM later decided not to sell its European business.
German media said that most of Antwerp’s Astra production is to be transferred to a plant in Bochum.
Opel said in 2007 that it would stop making the Astra at Antwerp and would possibly replace it with midsize Chevrolet models or sport utility vehicles - heavy vehicles that now find fewer buyers.
The plant, which opened in 1929, has already shrunk from employing 7,000 workers at its peak to around a third of that today.
Opel head Nick Reilly said that the Antwerp plant had to go, with the loss of more than 2,300 jobs, because the company needs to shed 20% of its manufacturing capacity because far fewer cars are being sold as a result of the recession.
“We have to take a plant out and unfortunately it’s Antwerp,” he said. “It is the tough reality of the current business environment.”
Mr Reilly said the economic crisis means European car markers will probably sell 1.5 million fewer cars this year than last and four million fewer than in 2007.
