AUTOMAKER Honda has announced a global ”restructuring” of its plants caused in large part by the advance of battery-cars and causing upheaval in the UK, a key employer.
The company is also blaming ”unprecedented changes in the global automotive industry” but Honda’s European HQ will continue to be located in the UK to focus on the needs of our customers there.
The background to the closure is that Honda wants to revise its global manufacturing operations thanks to the challenges of ”electrification” to focus on regions where it expects to have high production volumes.
ANOTHER MAJOR HIT
The closure of the Swindon (southern England) plant which produces about 150 000 vehicles a year will have shed 3500 jobs when shutdown is complete in 2021. Parts suppliers in the region will also take a major hit.
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Staff there were all given the day off on Tuesday (Feb 19) to absorb the bad news.
The restructuring will also involve Honda Turkey which will stop assembly of 38 000 Civic units a year.
‘DECISION NOT TAKEN LIGHTLY’
Katsushi Inoue, boss of Honda’s European operations, said: ”We’ve had to take this decision to consult our workforce on how we might prepare our manufacturing network for the future.
”This has not been taken lightly and we deeply regret how unsettling today’s announcement will be for our people.”
