Slump hits truck output
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• Every British truck manufacturer is now cutting back in response to the drastic fall in sales over the past three months.
Even market leaders Iveco Ford and Leyland Daf are to go to a four-day week and Renault Truck Industries plans to shed 300 jobs — but it does not yet plan to cut production.
Iveco Ford is extending its Christmas shut-down at Langley to two weeks: thereafter the plant will be closed every Monday until 5 February. Production workers will be paid for the fifth day and no redundancies are planned.
Leyland-Daf s Lancashire assembly and components plants will go to a four-day week for nine weeks from 16 February. Production is being reduced from 68 to 62 trucks a day and the Christmas break is being extended by one week. The company hopes that an enhanced early-retirement package will reduce the workforce.
Renault Truck Industries plans to reduce its 1,070strong workforce at Dunstable, Bedfordshire, and Elmdon, Birmingham, by 300 during the first half of 1990. The cuts will mainly affect the company's manufacturing and machining operations.
AWD is moving to a four-day week after Christmas. ERF has been on a four-day week since mid-November, cutting production from 21 trucks a day to 15. The workforce has been reduced by 9% to 1.000 in the past two months through voluntary redundancies and early retirement.
Volvo and Seddon Atkinson have both been on a four-day week since November. and Foden, which builds to order, says that orders are down "substantially", with production cut from 30-40 a week to 2025. But no lay-offs are planned. 0 The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has called for full tax allowances on investment expenditure in its budget submission to the Government.