Up to 400 workers at Holden’s headquarters in Victoria will lose their jobs before Christmas, as the car maker continues to wind down its operations ahead of its 2017 manufacturing closure.
A further 200 workers will be dealt the same fate by the end of next year, the union representing engineering workers has confirmed.
The affected staff, all product development engineers responsible for designing new and updated vehicles, will be made redundant due to the fact Holden is nearing its manufacturing end date in Australia.
The VF Commodore, which has so far enjoyed consistently strong sales since it was launched mid-2013, will be updated for the final time in October 2015. The Cruze small car, meanwhile, is due for one last facelift before manufacturing is ceased in Australia.
“Unfortunately this is not news to the engineers themselves,” said Sharelle Herrington, the Victorian branch director of Professionals Australia, adding that the final 2014 figure will likely be between 200 and 400 staff.
“These job cuts will happen by the end of the year, but that was always the plan.
“These staff are all product development engineers, these are the people who design the car, who make it work, do all of the engines and chassis and everything else.
“With Holden not producing vehicles in Australia moving forward, the work for these engineers will eventually cease to exist.”
The immediate round of job cuts will not affect manufacturing engineers at Holden’s Elizabeth plant in South Australia.
In a statement, Holden said it was doing everything it could to help workers transition into new jobs.
“As announced last year, Holden’s engineering workforce is largely tied to production of our locally-manufactured vehicles and as such our engineering workforce will be scaled back over time,” the statement said.
“The company currently has a Voluntary Separation Program open to engineering employees, which has been open since the first quarter of this year. Holden has also localised a number of engineers to GM headquarters in Detroit where possible.
“We are absolutely committed to a long and orderly transition but won’t engage in speculation on timing or the number of employees impacted and have nothing to announce.”
Herrington said future job prospects for Holden’s product development engineers were dim. The company is expected to retain about 100 engineers once it closes it factory doors in 2017, as the brand reverts to an import-only basis. Holden will continue to employ those engineers in its global design centre.
“There will be a handful of positions left but it will be negligible for product engineers,” Herrington said.
“The really disappointing thing is that no one has a plan to keep those people in manufacturing in this country and in this state.
“I think of these engineers will have to look overseas for ongoing work. They’re trained in a pretty specialised skill set which is not directly transferable to other engineering jobs.”
The job cuts come as engineering workers at Holden prepare to negotiate their upcoming Enterprise Bargaining Agreement with the company later this year.
