This week starts in the Opel plant in Rüsselsheim a six-month presumably short-time working , A company spokesman said that the Federal Employment Agency approved it. Management and works council had in agreement with the IG metal agreed on the short-time work at the company’s headquarters. Affected are both the product development as well as administrative areas, it said.
The short-time work was already agreed in December in order to reduce the volume of work at the German locations, which currently has around 19,000 employees. This should be avoided in the acquired from the French PSA Group carmaker layoffs.
Short-time working is not the only measure: For example, Opel CEO Michael Lohscheller announced in December that the partial retirement program would be extended to the birth year 1960. There are also early retirement rules for employees 36 months before earliest possible retirement. The agreement between management and works council also provides for a significant reduction in the number of temporary workers in the Rüsselsheim and Kaiserslautern production plants.
Following the takeover by the PSA Group, Opel employees in Germany will be protected from layoffs until the end of 2018. Also, plant closures are initially not provided.
The restructuring program “Pace” is intended to bring the German car manufacturer back into profitability. It also focuses on new technologies and ideas. At the headquarters in Rüsselsheim, global competence centers are to be created for the entire PSA group. The first tasks are the development of fuel cells, selected assistance systems and technologies for automated driving.