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Cologne: Ford plants shut down production due to chip crisis

2021-05-03T15:23:16.883Z


Because urgently needed semiconductors are missing, Ford orders short-time work for a third of its employees at the Cologne plant. The US company is not the first automaker to take this step.


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Ford plant in Cologne: Reluctant production break

Photo: Oliver Berg / dpa

During the chip crisis, the Ford works in Cologne have to shut down production in the next few months.

In Cologne there will be short-time working days from May 3 to June 18 inclusive and from June 30 to July 9, 2021, according to a spokesman.

Production should start again on August 16, 2021 after the subsequent factory holiday.

Of the 15,000 employees in Cologne, around 5000 are affected by short-time working.

There is also short-time work at the Saarlouis location in consultation with the employee representatives.

"The situation on the global semiconductor market remains tense and will remain so according to all estimates in the next few months, resulting in delivery bottlenecks," said a Ford spokesman.

"We'll make up for the lost production as best we can," he said.

"We are working on improving the situation as quickly as possible."

Not the first auto company affected

Ford is not alone with the delivery problems with chips.

The car manufacturers Volkswagen, Audi, Daimler and BMW had therefore announced production restrictions.

The reason for the bottlenecks in electronic chips is that many companies switched their production to entertainment electronics during the car sales slump at the beginning of the corona crisis - parts are now missing in the car business, which has recently been improving again.

Ford had previously announced that production in Cologne would be suspended on Fridays due to the corona-related decline in demand.

As recently became known, the production lines in the Saarlouis plant will also be idle from May 3rd to 18th and from May 25th to June 7th.

Around 4,500 Ford employees there are affected.

Negotiations are already underway for further short-time working days in Saarlouis, it said.

hba / dpa / Reuters

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-05-03

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