Filed under: Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Plants/Manufacturing, Toyota, Australia



There is more bad news for the Australian auto industry today, as Toyota has just announced that it will follow General Motors and Ford in shuttering its manufacturing operations on the continent. Production and assembly will cease by the end of 2017, but Toyota will remain in Australia as a sales and distribution company.

"We did everything that we could to transform our business, but the reality is that there are too many factors beyond our control that make it unviable to build cars in Australia," said Toyota Australia President and CEO Max Yasuda.

In an official statement, Yasuda said that the closure would directly affect 2,500 manufacturing employees and an unknown number of corporate workers. However, a report in the Australian newspaper The Age suggests that the jobs of 24,000 workers at Australian auto suppliers could also be in jeopardy. â??Toyota currently builds its Camry, Camry Hybrid, Aurion sedans in Australia, along with four-cylinder engines, and it plans to begin importing the Camry and Aurion after production stops.

The plight of the Australian auto industry took a sharp turn for the worse last May when Ford announced that it would end Australian production in 2016. GM revealed its plans in December to stop building Down Under in 2017. In less than a year, the country has lost all three of its remaining domestic automakers (Mitsubishi stopped building cars in AU back in 2008). Questions whether Toyota would stay arose soon after GM's news. The Japanese auto giant had hoped to work with local suppliers to find a way to keep production running, but apparently it could not find a way to make the math work. Scroll down to read Toyota Australia's full press release.Continue reading Toyota to end Australian production by 2017

Toyota to end Australian production by 2017 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 10 Feb 2014 15:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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