Toyota halts production at China factory due to shortage of parts

Toyota Motor Corp has announced that it has halted production at its main facility in China following a shortage of automobile parts owing to its parts supplier Toyoda Gosei being affected by labour-related issues.

The Toyota plant at Tianjin has three assembly lines and manufactures over 420,000 cars annually.

Production was stopped at the Toyota plant at Tianjin, close to Beijing, on Friday. Toyota has declared that it is unsure if work at the plant would continue from Monday onwards and added that it would depend on the steady availability of parts from its supplier, Toyoda Gosei. Workers at two of Toyoda Gosei’s plants based in Tianjin have staged walk-outs from the factory demanding better wages. Latest reports point to the strike still being in effect with employees refusing to return to work.

Worker strikes have also affected other carmakers such as Honda Motor Co, both directly and indirectly. The company reported that supply at one of its facilities was disrupted for a short while following a labour strike at the Nihon Plast Co at Zhongshan that manufactures plastic parts for Honda. The company also produces airbags and steering wheels for Nissan Motor Co. However, Nissan has reported that it did not face any shortage of supply in spite of the strike.

Honda was also hit by an employee strike last week, but the company has managed to resolve the issue by agreeing to an increase in workers’ wages. Though the pay rise does not match the demand set by the workers, they have resumed working at the factory.

Other companies affected by the labour unrest include Danish brewer Carlsberg which partly owns one of the breweries where workers staged a walk-out. However, workers had reportedly returned to work at the brewery on Friday evening.

Labour strikes are currently being witnessed at different factories all across China, with workers’ main demand being an increase in their pay. The strikes have badly affected the nation and its reputation as a low-cost production hub. The success of certain labour strikes is expected to lead to new strikes in other companies, according to an advocacy group based in Hong-Kong. Factories in China have reported losses in employee number by as high as 25 percent. Companies are increasing their efforts to hire staff at their factories to buffer the employee shortage.