The Opel plant in Antwerp will be closed, according to sources.
The plant's future has been under review since GM decided not to sell Vauxhall/Opel, but its 2300 staff had been hoping for a stay of execution.
GM is seeking to reduce its European capacity by around one-fifth, cutting 8000 jobs in total.
"They did not back down from the decision to close Antwerp. Now [Opel CEO Nick] Reilly has announced that this would be implemented," a company source told Automotive News Europe.
However, a GM Europe spokesman said on Tuesday that no final decision on the Antwerp factory has been made.
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Re: Opel 'to close Antwerp plant'
I did wonder whether the whole charade of pretending they were going to sell Opel/Vauxhall, was just to prepare everyone for job cuts & factory closures. At least now they can say "Ah, but there would have been more job cuts had we sold Opel", & try & come off as the good guys.
Regardless, its a shame for the workers, they are the ones who have really been messed around in this. & so many redundancies in one town/city is awful, youve potentially got 2300 people applying for every manufacturing job that comes up, not good.
Re: Opel 'to close Antwerp plant'
Reilly should have announced the coming job cuts in Germany as well and ripped the bandage off rather than slowly peeling it away. It’s unfortunate but at least he would be making the necessary tough choices now to move ahead and then possibly rehire when things improve.