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Continental closes tyre factories, Daimler cuts work hours

DDP/DPA/The Local
DDP/DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Continental closes tyre factories, Daimler cuts work hours
Photo:DPA

In a dark day for German auto workers, it was announced on Wednesday that tyre giant Continental is to close a factory with the loss of 780 jobs, while Daimler is to put a further 18,000 of its workers on shorter hours.

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Continental is set to close a factory in Hannover, cutting around 780 jobs, while production in another factory in the Slovakian town of Puchov will be reduced by a fifth.

The drop in demand for lorry tyres has hit the company hard and it has reduced its production of utility tyres across Europe by 27 percent.

The company’s car tyre factory in Clairoix, France, will also be closed by next April, a spokesman said – around 1,120 people work there producing eight million tyres a year.

The spokesman said there was, “sadly no alternative” to closing the factories, which were the ones with the highest production costs. Discussions are to begin with the unions concerned.

Daimler meanwhile, which already put 50,000 of its workers on shorter shifts, said on Wednesday, it was extending such measures to another 18,000 people. Those affected work at the factories in Wörth, Gaggenau, Kassel and Mannheim.

Most of them will see their hours cut from Easter, with the rest on shorter hours by the end of the summer.

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