Honda Motor plant in China | Credit: Bloomberg
Honda Motor Co. is slashing jobs and has paused production at three of its plants in China, as it seeks to trim inventories and work on a broader shift in strategy in the world’s largest car market.
The Japanese automaker offered redundancy packages to more than 2,000 workers at its joint venture with China’s state-owned Dongfeng Motor Group Co., according to local media reports. The staff optimization is part of a strategy to ensure sustainable operations and speed up its transition to electric vehicles, Dongfeng Honda said in a statement via social media on Tuesday.
Production at three plants has been suspended for about two weeks from Aug 26 to reduce inventory, Honda said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Honda declined to comment on the job cuts, while Dongfeng didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
The automobile industry’s rapid transition toward EVs and fierce competition in China have hurt sales and earnings of foreign automakers, including Japanese, American and German. Honda’s China sales plummeted 21.48 per cent in the first half of 2024.
To move toward electrification, Honda will reduce production of gasoline cars. The Japanese carmaker also has another joint venture with Guangzhou Automobile Group, which also slashed workers earlier this year, according to the Chinese media.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First Published: Sep 11 2024 | 11:47 PM IST
