General Motors will introduce a four-day working week at its Opel factory in Szentgotthard, on Hungary’s border with Austria, a spokesperson from the factory told MTI on Tuesday.
The company has decided to shorten working hours from mid-April in order to retain jobs under threat due to the financial crisis, said Edit Legradi.
Under an agreement with the trade unions, employees will receive 50 percent of their wages for the hours they are not working.
Despite falling orders, the Szentgotthard factory plans to export to China, a new market, this year, Legradi said. The first orders were for 18,000 engines — 1.6 and 1.8 litre models — in the first four months of the year, which is planned increase by another 1,000 at the end of the year.
Last year, the factory produced 392,878 engines to supply car makers Opel, Vauxhall and Saab.