Reduced demand for Aurion and Camry

[Ronnyboy]

Some light reading.

Reduced demand for Aurion and Camry is behind Toyota's announcement of redundancies at Altona

President of Toyota Australia, Max Yasuda, has told staff at the company's Altona manufacturing plant that 350 jobs must go in the aftermath of shrinking demand in domestic and export markets for the two products built there, Camry and Aurion.

Described in a press release as "compulsory redundancies", the job cuts at Altona are a consequence of global demand for the plant's products dropping from 149,000 cars in 2007 to 94,000 last year.

Yasuda said: "It is unfortunate that we have to take this action and we will ensure affected employees are supported during this process.

"In consideration of current and anticipated market conditions this action is necessary. It is not possible to maintain our workforce at its current size.

"Toyota Australia is facing severe operating conditions resulting in unsustainable financial returns due to factors including the strong Australian currency, reduced cost competitiveness and volume decline, especially in export markets."

The announcement comes at a time when Toyota should actually be ramping up production of the new Camry, which has just been launched in Australia, and the imminent new Aurion. Also due in the near future is the Hybrid version of the Camry. Toyota does anticipate that demand in 2012 should come up about a thousand units, but that's not enough to compensate for the excess capacity afflicting the manufacturing arm here.

The company's domestic and export sales were badly affected last year by the twin disasters of tsunami and earthquake that swept through northern Japan in March. That should have created a considerable backlog of orders for the factory in Altona, west of Melbourne, but not enough to stave off job shedding, apparently.

"The reality is that our volumes are down," Yasuda continued. "What we assumed was a temporary circumstance has turned into a permanent situation. This drop of 36 per cent in just four years shows the scale of our challenges."

Toyota has been the only local manufacturer to pass through the GFC without having retrenched production line staff, but now even the Big T has had to succumb to economic pressures — and the most notable pressure has been applied by the historically strong Australian dollar. Yasuda seems confident that Toyota's local manufacturing can remain viable in the longer term, however, and like both Holden and Ford, its car-building presence has come to be considered an integral aspect of the brand in Australia.

"Manufacturing is a vital element of our overall operations in Australia," said Yasuda. "The actions we take now to transform our business will pave the way for our future success as a leading manufacturer and marketer of vehicles to local and export customers."

[Silver-Aurion]

Well give us an Aurion with a new engine, make over, RWD and I'll buy the new on in a heart beat. From what I'm hearing around the net, the new Aurion will have the same engine (that's 7 years old now).

[FRM05A]

Interesting read Ronny...

Decrease in production will lead to job loses. Only expected...

[toyrex]

Heard from sources within Toyota that the assembly line workers are deliberately introducing defects into the new cars as they are angry with their Management over the forced redundancies.

Let's hope this will settle down soon otherwise our car's reputation and reliability will be down the tube.

Edited March 14, 2012 by toyrex

[Ronnyboy]

More news on Toyota;

One day after sacking 350 workers, Toyota seeks to clarify its position on the redundancies and says the sackings won’t cause a backlash in sales

Toyota Australia has just launched its new second-generation Aurion, a car that is built in Australia and designed for Australian conditions. But the timing couldn't be worse.

The launch of Toyota's locally-made flagship, and rival to the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore, was overshadowed by the sacking of 350 Toyota employees at its Altona plant in Melbourne the day before, accounting for roughly 10 per cent of that manufacturing plant's workforce.

The news made national headlines, and a heavy security presence didn't paint Toyota in a positive light. Neither did the fact that some employees who had been there almost thirty years came to work expecting to go home with their jobs.

Toyota insists that the recent redundancies will not affect morale at the Altona plant, where the Aurion is built, nor production quality of the new car.

"We have an excellent workforce so we're confident the quality levels on this car will be outstanding as per the first generation [Aurion]," said Toyota's executive director of sales and marketing, Matthew Callachor.

Queried on the issue of the sackings, Callachor stated it was "...an unfortunate circumstance combined with the situation [of] the [strong Australian] currency and [falling] export market levels of demand."

"We've got to keep it in perspective," he continued. "The cutbacks we had are in line with the volumes [of car production] that are planned moving ahead."

The Toyota Australia executive implied that there were no regrets, claiming that the workforce cut backs were handled with care.

"The process we went through was that we had a selection of criteria for each of the 350 [employees] that were actually chosen. So we don't believe that there is anything we would have done differently at this juncture.

"We had consultations with the union ... we adhered rigidly to the WBA (workplace bargaining agreement) conditions, so at this juncture we believe that

we've done everything in accordance with the labour plans in terms of trying to consult and work with people. Obviously it's always regrettable to have to let people go."

While Toyota wanted to talk about the new Aurion, the topic of redundancies and the state of car manufacturing in Australia continued to dominate the conversation. In response to a question posed by motoring.com.au, Toyota wouldn't rule out more cutbacks.

"Look, the way we scale the workforce at the present time, it's in light of our forecast moving into the future in the sales race."

Though Callachor insisted "...the workforce is now at a level which we believe is in accordance with our planned volumes into the future," he also suggested the Altona jobs would not last forever: "No one can ever give you a [job] guarantee in terms of overall ad infinitum."

The response from readers in regards to how they view the new Aurion has been mixed, with plenty of talk about job losses, but Toyota doesn't expect a customer backlash from the recent sackings.

"If you're talking about particular vehicles and people's reasons for selecting our vehicles ... I believe that people will evaluate vehicles on the basis of what suits their requirements moving forward into the future.

"Basically this process has been in accordance with everything we laid out to start with, and we wanted to show the utmost respect to the people involved. And so, from my viewpoint I think that people, in terms of buying vehicles from Toyota, will evaluate the requirements of the particular vehicle they want."

Holden and Ford secured financial support from the government to ensure their local manufacturing operations continue, as do future updates of their large cars. Will the Toyota Aurion survive alongside?

"We believe so," states Toyota's executive director of sales and marketing. "That's what we've planned for."

Despite commanding just 12 per cent of the shrinking large car market, Toyota is talking up the car's future: "This segment may have come down but it's still nearly 80,000 vehicles; that's hardly a niche segment. That's a substantial volume in the Australian marketplace.

"Our plan is that we'll sell more Aurions this year than we have in the last two years," concluded Callachor.