HOLDEN last night announced it would axe up to 200 jobs and restructure its Adelaide production line.   

This is little more than a week after Toyota Australia declared it would slash 350 people from its Melbourne factory workforce.   

Holden's managing director, Mike Devereux, said the jobs of Holden's 2400 full-time factory workers were secure. But about 100 casual jobs are in doubt and up to 100 fixed-term contracts may not be renewed.


Union officials were last night being briefed by Holden's senior management in Adelaide at the car assembly plant.

''Hopefully he [Mr Devereux] will put all the cards on the table in regard to where the future is for Holden and what their plans are,'' said John Camillo, the South Australian state secretary of the AMWU, before the meeting.

''It's not as if it's the first time I've gone through this - I've gone through it at Mitsubishi and other places. We'll just have to take what they tell us and work out how we go forward.''

The carmaker is scaling back its capacity from 460 cars per day to 400 and cutting back to one shift instead of two on the general assembly line.

Holden said it would build the same number of cars as last year - about 90,000 - but would improve efficiency.

"No permanent Holden employees are going to lose their jobs as a result of this. People on the afternoon shift are going to join their mates on the day shift," Mr Devereux told The Age.

Holden had grown its casual workforce in anticipation of reviving its export deals to North America and the Middle East. "[But] due to the high Australian dollar, the forecasted [export] growth that we were anticipating in our production for 2012 is not going to materialise," he said.

Holden had known of the worker cutbacks for some time; late last year it told dealers it planned to wipe 5000 Commodores from its 2012 production forecast.

Holden's announcement comes as preliminary figures show the Commodore, having last year lost its crown as Australia's top-selling car for the past 15 years to the Mazda3, suffered a further ignominy in January by being outsold by its smaller Cruze sibling.

Meanwhile, the Ford Falcon recorded its weakest month in more than 50 years with just 950 sold in January.

Ford Australia spokeswoman Sinead Phipps said Falcon sales were dented by hail damage to cars waiting to be trucked from the Broadmeadows factory to dealers.

■Almost 200 workers will lose their jobs after the maker of Mortein and Dettol announced plans to shut down its only Australian manufacturing plant, in Sydney.   

Reckitt Benckiser Australia chief executive Lindsay Forrest said the market had changed significantly since local operations began in 1963. He blamed the small and isolated Australian market for the closure.

With AAP

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/holden-cuts-cost-200-jobs-20120201-1qtno.html#ixzz1lAMV1zmk

Have they suddenly realised why they have been beating Ford at the races now?

Ford has cut 90% of its racing budget these past 5 years in an effort to keep FORD itself 'ticking along' upon the big picture. Smart 'conservative' thinking during these tough economic times.