Holden to axe 400 jobs this year in South Australia

[Express]

Holden to axe 400 jobs this year in South Australia



Simon Evans
Senior Reporter
Business Day
26 February, 2016



The Cruze model will be replaced by an imported Holden Astra. Photo: Michael Dodge


About 400 workers from the Holden car manufacturing plant in northern Adelaide will lose their jobs at the end of 2016, with the car maker announcing on Friday it would stop making the Holden Cruze model then.

The scrapping of the locally built small car model by Holden will slash the workforce at the Holden plant at Elizabeth from about 1200 to 800 by the end of 2016, ahead of the complete shutdown of the plant in late 2017. Workers were told of the decision at internal meetings on Friday afternoon.

Holden managing director Mark Bernhard said on Friday the company would continue to make Holden Commodore sedans and wagons at the factory until late in 2017.



Production of the Holden Cruze will cease a year early.


Mr Bernhard said the end of Cruze production first up had always been part of the scaling down plans by parent General Motors Holden and the local arm, after the decision was made in late 2013 to end car making in Australia by 2017.

The Cruze model will be replaced by an imported Holden Astra. The Cruze had been manufactured at the Elizabeth plant for the past five and a half years.

Rival car maker Ford is scheduled to close its car manufacturing factory at Broadmeadows in Melbourne in October, 2016 along with an engine plant in Geelong. Toyota will close its car making plant at Altona in western Melbourne in 2017, signalling the end of a local automotive manufacturing industry.

This will leave Australia as an importer only of new cars, after Mitsubishi Motors became the first of the big four car makers to shut down local car making in 2008 when it shuttered a plant in Adelaide's southern suburbs at Tonsley Park.

Holden said on Friday it was helping its workforce with transition support services and up to $3,000 for approved training courses to help them find new work.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-e...26-gn4w78.html