The management of Seat in Martorell weighs new partial stoppages due to lack of components in the assembly lines of its Catalan factory, while evaluating launching a new ERTE (Temporary Employment Regulation File) like months ago to provide flexibility with the template, according to sources close to the company. The previous temporary workforce adjustment ended in June when practically all activity recovered.
Company sources did not give details and only confirmed that a regular meeting is scheduled for this afternoon to discuss production in October.
The same sources close to Seat added that the first measure that the company wants to implement is the suppression of Saturday shifts that had recovered in the summer with the improvement in supplies. The situation could get complicated in the coming weeks to the point of leading the company to suspend a work shift. Obviously the level of uncertainty is high and nothing is closed.
Seat - like the rest of the car industry - has two ways of adjusting production. The first is to reduce working hours, the other the number of employees who are in production.
The possible slowdown in Seat production occurs after the other factory of the German group in Spain – the Volkswagen plant in Navarra – also carried out specific stoppages. In the Landaben factory there will be no production two days next week (Monday the 5th or Friday the 9th). At Stellantis, activity at the Figueruelas plant (Zaragoza) will be stopped until this Friday, September 2.
Sources close to Seat said that what is happening to the Martorell-based company is a problem that affects the entire German consortium.
Seat ended its previous ERTE on June 17 due to the stabilization in recent weeks of the supply of chips. In that case, the file was for the 11,000 people who perform production tasks, but it used to only apply to between 400 and 500 people each day.
