Workers at Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port factory in Liverpool will not endure any redundancies as part of the restructuring of Opel/Vauxhall now that GM has decided not to sell the European arm of its company. There will be 354 job losses at the firm's Luton plant, which is significantly fewer than originally feared would be the case under the Magna deal that has fallen through.
Vauxhall employs 5,000 staff in the UK and the Ellesmere Port factory has been told it will now move to a three-shift production operation in 2011 to cope with demand as production of the new Astra hatch increases and the launch of the Astra Sport Tourer approaches.
The Ellesmere Port plant had to compete with other GM factories across Europe to win the production of the Astra. A GM spokesman said: "The British factory won the competition to build the new Astra because its workers proved themselves to be the most efficient and able."
There will be more job cuts in other parts of GM's European business, with Germany set to lose 5,425 workers, 2,321 in Belgium and a further 900 in Spain. No decision has been made when these redundancies will be made, but GM insiders say it is likely to happen within the next month.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said: "I hope the workers at Vauxhall's plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton will get a speedy resolution in the next few weeks after so much uncertainty."
Alisdair Suttie - 30 Nov 2009