As Numsa News went to print, more than 1000 auto jobs hung in the balance. Car manufacturers Ford, Nissan and BMW plan to get these workers off their books by the end of November this year. 117 jobs at Ford will go because of a decision to shift the production of the Freelander to Britain .
At BMW, the number of models produced will be cut – close to 550 workers will be affected by this move. And at Nissan, efforts to ‘rejuvenate’ the workforce are continuing with 350 older workers set to lose their jobs. The Nissan retrenchment follows closely on its retrenchments late last year of another 468 workers as part of the same rationalisation exercise.
In a hard hitting press statement, Numsa’s information officer, Dumisa Ntuli, slammed the Motor Industry Development Programme for promising “sustainable employment…. but instead there has been a growth in casual, temporary, contract jobs with increased outsourcing of other jobs.”
Such job losses will add to the 6000 other metal workers that have already lost their jobs this year. Numsa has vowed to fight the retrenchments.