Holden will terminate 170 jobs at its Elizabeth plant in South Australia, the carmaker has confirmed today, pointing to a high Australian dollar and reduced demand for its locally-built Cruze and Commodore models.

The redundancies follow a series of layoffs and reduced production schedules put into place earlier this year, and comes despite an announcement in March of a $275million federal and state funding boost and a commitment to local production until 2022.

In a statement today, the carmaker said that the move will "align production with customer requirements and projected future volume," describing it as a necessary step to ensure continued manufacturing in Australia "for the next decade".

The carmaker said the decision was not made lightly, and that it will work with employees to help them move toward new work opportunities.

Holden said it had taken steps to avoid the need for redundancies, including "market response days" - planned temporary shutdown periods to align production with sales.

Employees will be offered Voluntary Redundancy Packages, and it is expected that no forced redundancies will be required.

Holden is currently in the final stages of development on its new VF Commodore, and a new wagon variant will soon join the local Cruze range.

A new midsized model, the Malibu, will also join the Holden line-up early in 2013 - a move that is likely to further impact on the Commodore's dwindling sales.

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• reply ” like !

  

  matt says,
  8 months ago

  3 likes

  feel sorry for the workers but if holden made a decent car at a not over inflated price maybe more people would buy them instead of OS models. just imagine if we had less tax on cars coming into the country, holden (and also ford and toyota) would have been out of business years ago.
  • reply ” like !

    

    don\'t feed the troll says,
    8 months ago

    5 likes

    Matt - how is the price inflated? If you have some special knowledge of Holden's costs, please enlighten us. As for it being a decent car, I have owned six cars. The first three were made OS (as you put it) - each had a major problem which put them off the road for weeks. The last three have been Commodores and have only ever needed servicing, not repair.
    
    The only reason my next car won't be a Commodore is that I want a smaller car. This doesn't prove anything, of course, but you can't prove your points either. They are both just opinions.
• reply ” like !

  

  Roger says,
  8 months ago

  We do pay massively over-inflated prices for cars. All you need to do is go to a UK site where the OTR (on the road) price is there by law. In the past I have mentioned that you can buy a BMW 335 for AUD$55K OTR BMW official price on their website. You wont even get a Calais for that here. A Porsche 911GT3 is 100K Euros, at current exchange thats $125K+taxes. Why does it cost AUD$300K. More normal vehicles such as a Toyota FJ Cruiser that is a relatively good buy here at $48K drive away is USD$27K in the states. As I say all the time, we pay up to double the international price paid by other major countries, and its not all taxes. LCT on the 335 is only $10K, if you take that off its still $100K OTR here as opposed to $55K in the UK, which is a highly taxed country.
  • reply ” like !

    

    good luck says,
    8 months ago

    Roger
    
    I think you're missing the point. These are not Australian-built vehicles, let alone Holdens. The discussion was about the price of Holdens being inflated, not out of the reach (of most of us) Porsche and BMW products.
    
    Having said that, you do have a (different) point. We do get shafted on luxury cars. That might be a problem for you, but unless I win the lottery, it won't be for me.
    • reply ” like !

      

      Roger says,
      7 months ago

      1 like

      I think you may have missed what I was saying....it is local market protection that results in us paying $100K for a car we should be paying $50K for. We should be able to buy a BMW 328 for under $40K, not $70K. In other words if we paid international prices we should get a 328 for the price of an XR6 or SV6, a 335 for less than a Calais V. We pay inflated prices for luxury cars, because local manufacturers need huge profits per car to be in business. Automotive manufacturing probably employs less than 10,000 people in Australia. Hell, Campbell Newman sacked more than that from Qld. Public Service in one go! Manufacturing here is dead....sooner or later....its inevitable. The Asians do it better and cheaper. Even the Americans do it better. I was just watching Supercars on Nat Geo channel, 450KW Shelby Mustang, 0-100 3.6s, $50K! For gods sake, thats ridiculous to us, normal to them. I have had a gutful of Australian manufactured vehicles, and I have owned quite a few. There will never be another one for me.