They say that a week in Australian politics is a long time and that’s something that could also be said about the Australian car manufacturing industry. Last week we had the bad news of the Bracks Report into Australia’s car industry and this week we’ve begun to see and feel the pain.
Ford have announced that they’ll be cutting 350 jobs due to the sluggish sales of its new Falcon and the weak outlook for the vehicle industry and the former chariman of Toyota says that the move by Ford to reduce the workforce is just the beginning.
So which company i going to be next to shed jobs? I expect we’ll soon see an announcement from Holden although it could be Toyota.
Oh wait … I’ve just named the two remaining players in the Australian car industry haven’t I?
Perhaps the real concern isn’t going to be which company will be the next to shed jobs but rather whether or not we’ll still have three players in the industry by mid 2010.