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Johannesburg - Yet another car manufacturer has begun voluntary retrenchment of staff members because of the difficulties the industry is experiencing.
Rella Bernardes, general manager for communication at Ford SA, on Monday confirmed that voluntary retirement and retrenchment packages had been offered to Ford employees since the end of last month.
In consultation with the metal workers' union Numsa, Ford started the process and about 800 of the company's 4 000 employees will be affected by the cutback.
This will include both permanent and temporary workers.
"It will all be voluntary," says Bernardes.
The cutback, she adds, it is not because of lower local sales of vehicles. Although local production has, as a result, been reduced, volumes have been held stable by increasing export production.
Barnardes says the retrenchment is in reaction to "current business requirements and the state of the South African economy".
In this way Ford aims to improve factory efficiency.
General Motors South Africa (GMSA) announced a few months ago that it had begun a process of voluntary retrenchment. This followed a decision to reduce production volumes in most of its brands.
By the end of the year the cutbacks will amount to 1 000 posts. "From the start we were upfront about this," declares Denise van Huyssteen, communications manager for GMSA , as well as the group's African operations.
Van Huyssteen says the affected employees have all left the company voluntarily.
GM announced the biggest-ever operating loss for a motor manufacturer last year, and consequently began a process of cutting costs and jobs.
At the introduction of the new Chevrolet Aveo at the end of August GMSA's management said it was a sensitive point.
According to Bill Stephens, head of marketing and communications at Volkswagen, the company is "carefully" examining its current production schedule and the impact of the strike by its logistics service provider, Schnellecke. The strike is in its second week.
"This is affecting our production, and therefore also local business and export contracts," says Stephens.
No job cuts are, however, planned.
Veralda Schmidt, spokesperson for Nissan South Africa, says the production of a new Renault model, as well as the manufacturing of the new half-ton Nissan bakkie, due to begin shortly, will ensure that company employees will not be retrenched.
But she could not confirm that the factory, which is currently not producing at full capacity, would resume full production.
Fin24.com