Honda will save 1300 jobs at its Swindon plant by adjourning production at the facility for two months. All staff will receive full basic pay during the downtime.
The plant will cease production through February and March next year. Some of the 4,800 staff at the site will work on maintenance during the period and others will embark on training initiatives.
Honda’s statement read: “Honda today announced a plan to adjust automobile production at its UK factory in Swindon for the current fiscal year in response to a dramatic change in the global automobile market.
“In addition to 32,000 units production adjustment between December 2008 and March 2009 that had previously been announced, production at Honda of the UK Manufacturing Ltd (HUM) will be further adjusted by 21,000 units.
“This will be achieved by suspending production for 29 days during the months of February and March 2009, combined with 13 non-production days previously planned in this period. Therefore HUM will stop all vehicle production in February and March 2009. There are no plans for redundancies.”
The Japanese giant with a penchant for quirky television adverts follows in the footsteps of Nissan, Ford, BMW, General Motors and Toyota which have all carried out or are planning to stage temporary shut-downs of UK production plants.
The SMMT has reported a 23 per cent month-on-month decline in sales from October and has revised its overall predictions for total 2008 sales down to 2.15 million – a 10 per cent drop on last year’s figures.