Hyundai to relocate 300 workers from truck production line

SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s top automaker, Hyundai Motor Co., said Tuesday it will relocate around 300 workers from its truck production line, due mainly to the falling demand for such vehicles from the weakening construction industry.

Hyundai said it reached an agreement with its labor union to reassign some of the workers from the truck production line of the Jeonju factory, located around 190 kilometers south of Seoul.

Around 210 employees will be sent to other lines in the factory, while others will be dispatched to other Hyundai factories in Gwangju and Ulsan, located 329 kilometers and 414 kilometers south of Seoul, respectively.

Hyundai also decided to reduce the number of cars produced per hour by 30 percent to eight from the previous 12.39 units.

The company currently produces commercial automobiles at the Jeonju factory, including the Mighty truck.

It marks the first time for Hyundai to relocate more than 100 employees at the same time.

Hyundai said management and the labor union have been discussing the possible movement of its workers to other production lines and reduction of the number of commercial cars produced, and that the two have reached a consensus based on the prolonged slump in the performance of the Jeonju factory.

Over the January-September period, Hyundai sold 25,017 units of mid-sized trucks, along with 4,424 units of larger models. The figures mark 15.4 percent and 28.1 percent drops from the same period a year earlier, respectively.