Chrysler Totally Shuts Down Operations for One Month

The already nearly handicapped U.S. economy only seems to be getting worse, particularly in the area of automobiles. It has been reported that Chrysler, who has 30 factories across the United States, will be totally shutting down operations for a planned time of one month. The original plan was to shutdown for two weeks only, as auto plants normally do for the winter holiday, but as business continues to slow down and automakers sit in wait of government help, this seems to have been the only option.

A Chrysler spokesperson was reported to have said that no one will be able to return to work any earlier than Jan. 19, 2009. He did not want to comment on what may happen after that date but will continue to monitor the situation. This one month shutdown will affect 46,000 workers starting on December 19. That is a lot of people who have to worry about when they will be able to return to their jobs, for the fact that this production shutdown doesn't have a definite restart date. If I were an employee of Chrysler I would probably be looking for some other kind of work just in case the production shutdown is extended any further out. Chrysler apparently also plans to hold off on financing to dealers in an effort to conserve some money.

Talks of a possible merge with Chrysler and GM have been reopened according to the Wall Street Journal. Previous talks regarding the merge utterly failed, but due to high demands from Washington regarding an auto industry reconfiguration, talks of the merge have resurfaced. Chrysler who reportedly told Congress that they needed $7 billion to survive the month, may possibly want to consider having a meeting between company heads who are multi-millionaires, and pay the $7 billion from their own pockets.

Needless to say, if the auto industry does not recover from these current issues soon, it will further damage an already weak economy. At the moment, automakers seem to be waiting on government help to bail them out this situation. Chrysler, GM, Ford, Toyota, and Honda are all going to be cutting production in some way. Ford will stop production for an additional two weeks on all but two of its plants. The overall extended halt on production, is due to the withering consumer demand for new cars. Production setbacks not only affect workers who are directly employed by automakers but also affects auto industry suppliers. U.S. auto industry suppliers account for nearly one million workers.