The Indian car industry seems to be recovering from one of its worst slowdowns ever but General Motors is still reeling under the dark loom of despair. The brand’s market share has been spiraling downwards but that is quite clearly because of the lack of interesting products in their portfolio. It is already well established that their Chinese introductions have failed to incite any push to their falling sales! Waking up from slumber, the company is now planning some drastic measures to keep up with the industry, the first of which is downsizing.
At a recent press conference the company management announced that they are shutting down their manufacturing facility in Halol, Gujarat. This means a drop of 1.10 lakh units in terms of production capacity. More than that, the shutting down of Halol plant will put to risk the job of 1,100 workers, which is the current strength of the factory.
The reason cited by GM for this move is to consolidate their operations at one place and since Talegaon is closer to the R&D facility, it was a preferred choice. Its proximity with Mumbai, which is a port (and can help in exports & international sourcing), also helped the cause.
While Mary Barra, global CEO of GM, did announce that they are in talks with the workers and will be offering them a chance to shift to their Talegaon facility in Maharashtra, we do not think things will be as simple as that. The company however, said that they are in talks with all the employees and will be offering compensation packages.
They have also announced an investment of 1 billion USD for the Talegaon plant which would also be used for developing new products. This expansion in this plant, Chevrolet says, will help in creating 12,000 new jobs.
