The company was forced to adopt this measure as part of a cost-cutting plan developed to deal with the seriously decreased orders that resulted from the general decrease of the automotive market.
The seat belt assembling plant in Tunisia will be closed and most of the production will be taken over by Autoliv Turkey, resulting is a loss of 650 jobs. Another 140 jobs will be lost in early 2010 in France. Here, the steel stamping facility, acquired earlier this year from struggling supplier NPC in order to secure deliveries, will be shut down.
The situation is looking better for 30 Autoliv German workers, who will also become unemployed, as the steering wheel logistics center located there will be closed. In Mexico, steering wheel assembly operations have already begun to be transferred from the former Queretaro location to a recently acquired plant in Matamoros. Employees will be transferred to other Autoliv plants in Mexico.
“This is another important but difficult step in our action plan. In the highly competitive automotive industry we have to continuously improve our competitiveness and adapt the capacity to the actual demand,” said Jan Carlson, President and CEO of Autoliv Inc.
In October the company reported a net profit of US$39.2m for the third quarter after three successive loss-making quarters. Autoliv has already cut its workforce from 41,300 to 36,200 in the past year.
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