Jobs
Dunlop Tyres UK announced today that it will cease truck tyre manufacturing at its Birmingham factory. 650 jobs from a total workforce of 1,700 will be affected. Car, light truck, motor sport and racing tyres will still be made at the plant. Dunlop says the move is part of a Europe-wide rationalisation process as a result of excess capacity in the European tyre industry and the current market situation.
Ford predicts that it will once again reach a 10 p.c. market share in Europe within three years, according to the Wall Street Journal. Luxury car sales will play a large part in reaching the target. Renault and Nissan are moving closer together in Europe, merging their sales organisations. Around 9% of the 5,600 jobs are expected to be lost, saving some 1 billion Euro. By 2002, DaimlerChrysler intends to create 15,000 jobs. 5,000 of these will be in Germany in the service field of leasing, fleet management and fast fit services, according to the Financial Times Deutschland.
Bridgestone/Firestone will cut production capacity in two of its US plants as a result of the tyre recall and decline in demand for Firestone tyres. Approximately another 1,100 employees will lose their jobs.
Tenneco Automotive has announced that it is to start formal consultations with employees regarding the closure of its Monroe factory in York with the loss of 392 jobs. Tenneco blames competitive pressures, requiring the company to reduce capacity. Subject to consultations, the closing will be complete by the end of the year.
Ford has announced that car production will end at its Dagenham plant by 2002, with the loss of 1,900 jobs. Dagenham is Ford’s largest UK factory, where the Fiesta and Courier vans are built. Ford also announced that 500 new jobs would be created at Dagenham over an unspecified period in the engine manufacturing operations.
Bridgestone has announced that it will build its third tyre factory in the Chonburi province, in the southeast of Thailand. They will produce radial truck tyres, about 90 per cent of which will be exported to European countries and to the USA. The plant will create about 1,000 jobs.
Michelin is to lose 473 jobs from its workforce of 2,700 at its factory in Stoke-on-Trent in the UK, mostly among those producing passenger car tyres. This is part of Michelin’s overall European strategy to improve efficiency. Michelin sees a long-term future for Stoke and this year will invest £11 million in updating the factory, which was opened in 1927.
The Phoenix consortium and BMW have signed a deal to sell Rover to Phoenix. BMW has contributed £500 million to the deal and additional finance has been obtained by American company Burdale Financial. It is expected that 2,000 jobs will be lost, which is fewer than would have been lost under the plan of Alchemy Partners who had pulled out of talks with BMW recently.
Pacific Dunlop itself is in deep water, but now also the daughter company South Pacific Tyres, which is a 50:50 joint-venture with Goodyear, going back almost 15 years, is itself experiencing big problems. The company will cut 495 of 1,865 jobs at its three Melbourne-plants and stop making truck tyres altogether. South Pacific Tyres will import 100 % of its truck tyre needs.
The image of jobs in tyre repairing and fitting is not the best in Germany. In spite of being a “job with future” and a high level of unemployment (more than 10 per cent) not enough young peoble wants to occupy the vacancies.
Automotive components group ArvinMeritor is to cut its US workforce by 30%, or 800 staff. The reason is a fall in orders from the truck industry in the USA. There are no plans for cutbacks at the company’s European facilities.
London-PowerGen CHP Ltd is to construct a new £40million combined heat and power (CHP) plant at Michelin’s UK manufacturing site in Stoke-on-Trent. The building of the site is viewed by Michelin as a vote of confidence in the plant, which is at present shredding 473 jobs from its 2700 workforce. It is anticipated that the CHP plant will be operational by the end of 2001 and will meet Michelin’s energy requirement for at least 15 years, under a long term energy supply agreement.
Cooper Tire & Rubber is cutting back on 1,100 jobs and scaling back, or shutting some 18 plants world-wide. Cutbacks at US plants in Michigan, North Carolina and Texas do not appear to affect tyre manufacture. Lay-offs at European plants have still to be confirmed and would be undertaken in consultation with employee representatives. The cutbacks come alongside announcements of record third quarter profits.
Cooper-Avon has announced that it will be making 80 staff employees redundant in Europe. Locations affected are the Melksham (UK) HQ and offices in Switzerland, France and Germany. The cuts are blamed on the high level of the Pound and large numbers of imported tyres from the Far East and have been made, says Cooper-Avon, to reduce costs and increase job security for the remaining 900+ employees.
Former apprentice engineer with Michelin, now multi-millionaire businessman, John Caldwell, has pledged to try to find work within his mobile phone empire for the 950 Michelin workers facing the axe. Caldwell already employs 2,000 people in North Staffordshire and Crewe. He runs some 110 Phones 4U shops throughout the UK and has plans to take on 1,000 more people within the next year. The bulk of the new posts would be in communications positions.
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