Italian automaker Fiat on Tuesday called a two-week production halt in Italy from February 22, temporarily laying off some 30,000 workers because of a fall-off in orders.
“We announced today that all factories will stop from February 22 to March 7,” a Fiat spokesman told AFP.
“The (temporary) layoff announced today should be seen in relation to this month’s orders trend,” Fiat said in a statement.
“After a positive period at the end of 2009, orders taken in Italy in January have shrunk drastically to a level that is even lower than that recorded in January last year when the market was in serious crisis,” it said.
“Anticipating that this negative trend will continue, it is necessary to adjust production levels to demand.”
The announcement came the day after Fiat reported a larger-than-expected net loss for 2009 but forecast a return to profit this year as long as European governments continued incentives to buy eco-friendly vehicles.
The automaker suffered a net loss of 848 million euros (1.2 billion dollars) in 2009 compared with a profit of 1.72 billion euros the previous year.
Analysts had predicted a net loss of some 320 million euros, according to a consensus compiled by Dow Jones Newswires.
The annual loss was the first for the Italian icon since its return to profit in 2005 under its dynamic new boss Sergio Marchionne, credited with turning the company around after four straight years in the red.
Schemes such as “cash-for-clunkers” bonuses for trading in petrol-guzzling cars for more fuel-efficient models will help Fiat achieve sales of between 52 billion and 53 billion euros, it said.
Without such programmes, however, sales would be some 2.5 billion euros less.
“After a particularly difficult 2009, with uneven trading conditions across the group?s international scope of operations, 2010 is positioning itself as a year of transition and stabilisation,” it said on Monday.
Fiat imposed a number of temporary layoffs during the height of the global financial downturn in 2008 and 2009.
