Ford manufacturing plant in Germany to halt production over falling car sales in Europe

Ford Motor Company will be halting production operations across its plant in Cologne, Germany due to weakening demand across the European continent. This slowdown of operations will affect 4,000 workers and even though company officials have not ascertained for exactly how many days the plant would be shut it is estimated that there may be for about 8 days during the month of July.

In April, Ford has also laid off 250 of their workers at the Craiova Plant in Romania even though they had earlier announced that the company would be hiring about 500 additional workers. The German unit, Ford Werke has also applied for approval to shorten worker’s hours under the subsidized government program.

During the first quarter of 2012, Ford market share increased by 0.1% to reach a total of 8.5%. The company share in March was at 9.2% but this percentage was lower than what it was during the month of March 2011. Production of Fiesta subcompact hatchback at the Cologne plant also declined by more than 6% to 345,000 vehicles during the year.

Where the 27 member European Union states plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland were concerned, sales dipped by 8% to 131,410 in March. This fall in demand is due to certain measured implemented by the government which has resulted in a debt crisis that has affected customer confidence which has had an adverse effect on auto sales.