Toyota Makes Early Retirement Offers to 2,000 Workers
Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) said it’s making early retirement offers to about 2,000 of its veteran U.S. employees, most of whom work at its Georgetown, Kentucky, plant.
Toyota is trying to manage the retirement of the workers who will have at least 22 years with the company as of March 31, 2013. About 1,600 of those 2,000 employees work in Toyota’s Georgetown factory, where about 6,600 workers make the Camry, Venza and Avalon, according to an Oct. 30 statement on the company’s website.
“As we look at the next two years, a large contingent of those team members in the U.S., particularly in Kentucky, will be thinking about exiting the company due to 25 years of service,” the company said in a statement to employees on Nov. 29. “This program offers a strategic approach to managing for this condition.”
The automaker, based in Toyota City, Japan, has built plants in North America to expand its market share in the region. Toyota captured 14.4 percent of the U.S. market this year through October, an increase from 12.6 percent a year earlier, according to researcher Autodata Corp. The Kentucky factory, Toyota’s in North America, began production in 1988.
Workers eligible for the retirement program will receive two weeks of pay for each year with the company, capped at 25 years, in addition to eight weeks’ pay. Workers who accept the incentive package will retire in staggered intervals starting in February, the company said.
The retirement offers were reported earlier by the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Clothier in Southfield, Michigan, at mclothier@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jamie Butters at jbutters@bloomberg.net
Toyota Offers Early Retirement Package to 2,000 U.S. Workers
Toyota Motor Corp. via Bloomberg
Workers load a finished engine into a new Camry at the Toyota Georgetown manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky in this February 1, 2006 file photo.
Workers load a finished engine into a new Camry at the Toyota Georgetown manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky in this February 1, 2006 file photo. Source: Toyota Motor Corp. via Bloomberg
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