Factory closures

Ford Motor Co. shutters plant in Belgium, lays off over 4000 workers

Ford Motor Company has announced a plan to close its plant in Belgium which means that over four thousand jobs will be lost.

Press TV,

24 October, 2012

The US auto giant said in an announcement on Wednesday that its factory in Genk in the northeast Flemish region of Limbourg, near the Dutch border, would be shuttered and its 4,300 workers will be laid off.

"It's a nightmare, a catastrophe for Genk and for the region," Wim Dries, the town mayor said.

In a statement issued in Frankfurt, Ford Europe said that the plan will "help to address manufacturing overcapacity stemming from a more-than-20-percent drop in total industry vehicle demand in western Europe since 2007."

"We feel betrayed, we had a contract, a work contract till 2020 and now everything's over," one of the plant employees said.

On the other hand, Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo called for efforts "to find new economic activities for the region".

Faord said the assembly of its Mondeo, S-Max, and Galaxy models would be transferred from Genk to Valencia in Spain.

Meanwhile, the Flemish business leader's association Volka urged the government to reduce the labor price in the country.

"To compete with foreign competitors, labor costs paid by companies must be drastically cut," Jo Libeer a Volka official said.

In 2009, Opel, the European arm of US General Motors, closed its factory in the northern city of Antwerp.

Dow Chemical to Eliminate 2,400 Jobs, Close Factories

Dow Chemical Co. (DOW), the largest U.S. chemical maker by sales, will cut about 2,400 jobs and shut 20 manufacturing plants to reduce annual costs by $500 million in the face of slow global economic growth.

Bloomberg,

24 October, 2012

The facilities to be closed are in the U.S., Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, the U.K. and Japan, the Midland, Michigan- based company said in a statement released after it inadvertently e-mailed a draft copy to Bloomberg News earlier yesterday. An additional $500 million will be saved by cutting capital spending and curtailing some investments, Dow said.

The job cuts, which amount to 5 percent of Dow’s global workforce, follow DuPont Co.’s announcement yesterday that it’s eliminating 1,500 jobs in part because of declining demand for paint pigment and solar cells, and come even as Dow reported third-quarter earnings that exceeded analysts’ estimates. Chief Executive Officer Andrew Liveris said in July the company is operating in the worst conditions since 2009.

“Chemicals are a very economically sensitive industry,” Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Longbow Asset Management, said in a phone interview. “Economic growth in 2012 has slowed to a trickle, and that has spooked a lot of people.”

The job cuts announced by the two largest U.S. chemical makers are a reflection of a global economy still struggling to fully recover from recession, said Dollarhide, who helps manage $60 million including DuPont shares. DuPont is the largest U.S. chemical company by market valuation.

Dow fell 0.7 percent to $28.35 at 5:14 p.m. in New York, after the close of regular trading. DuPont fell 9.1 percent to $45.25 yesterday, the biggest decline since December 2008.....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-23/dow-chemical-considering-cutting-2-400-jobs-5-of-workforce-1-.html