Suzuki last week announced that it temporarily shut down its operations in Hungary after Russia stopped the gas export to Hungary, as part of a dispute with Ukraine. Russia suspended its gas deliveries to several European countries affiliated to the same network, including Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.
Magyar Suzuki is surely one of the largest automakers in Central Europe, with a total workforce of 5,500 employees. The Esztergom facility was officially opened in October, 1992 and is now responsible for the production of Suzuki Splash, Suzuki Ignis and the second generation Suzuki Swift.
Back in December, the Hungarian side of Suzuki announced a cost-cutting measure aimed at counteracting the over-discussed financial recession. The company said it planned to pay resigning employees who left the company by December 18 in order to shut down one of its three shifts. In other words, one-fifth of the total workforce had to abandon their jobs in order to allow the Japanese automaker to align its production with the market demand which, according to recent figures, experienced a massive decline.
Suzuki on the other hand recorded pretty good sales in 2008, with the Hungarian market share following the same increasing line started in 2007. Magyar Suzuki sold no less than 232,480 units in 2007, up from 163,963 in 2006, an increase of 41.78%, and managed to increase its market share to 18.2% from 17.4%.
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