Well, it's not just GM's Oshawa truck plant closure and Ford setting back the F-150's introduction anymore. Volvo has announced that it's axing 2,000 jobs, including 1,400 white-collar workers and 600 blue-collar positions.
It seems that the weak U.S. dollar and the price of raw materials is reaching all the way over to Europe. The company will get rid of some 1,300 people at its plants and offices in Sweden, another 500 consultants on contract to the automaker, and then an additional 300 warm bodies worldwide. The Swedish carmaker posted a first-quarter loss this year of the equivalent of US$151 million.
And don't think it's going to stop there; the elephant rolls over, and it isn't just the Great White North that feels its weight anymore. It's a very scary time to be tied to an auto company, and what's even scarier is that those shock waves go many miles beyond the gate at the front of the plant. I wonder just how far the bottom really is, and where this is all going to end.
