Magna Announces 200 Employees Will be Layoff From The Plant

Due to problems in the industry, Austrian automotive supplier Magna Steyr has announced that it will lay off 200 employees at its plant in Styria, Austria, where powertrains for electric vehicles are manufactured.

If the situation does not improve, up to 2,500 jobs could be threatened, Austrian media reports.

The Magna Powertrain plant based in Lanach in Austrian Styria, where transmissions and four-wheel drives have been produced for years, is conceived as Magna’s central hub for e-mobility. Among other things, they are talking about the production of engines for electric cars by the American manufacturer Fisker, which declared bankruptcy in the USA a few months ago.

Currently, Magna Powertrain only produces electric motors for Mercedes-Benz G-Class electric cars (pictured), which are produced by Magna’s sister company Steyr in Graz. However, since there are no new orders in sight, the management announced a few days ago that they were forced to lay off 200 workers.

According to the Austrian media, the crisis in the Magna Powertrain factory, which two years ago, according to information from the Austrian television station ORF, employed 2,950 workers, had been suspected for a long time. Managers and engineers were advised last year to look for work elsewhere.

Magna has even more problems in Europe. This year, Jaguar will end the production of two of its models at the Magna Steyr plant in Graz, namely the compact sports SUV E-Pace with SUS engine and the electric I-Pace. In addition, the British manufacturer Ineos postponed indefinitely the start of production of its Fusilier electric off-road vehicle, which was supposed to be entrusted to Magna Steyr.

In Graz, Magna Steyr currently employs 7,000 workers, while last fall there were 8,000 of them, however, of those who left the company, only about two hundred applied to the employment office. Some have switched to other professions, writes the Kleine Zeitung newspaper, adding that the number of dismissed workers from Slovenia is also not negligible, but does not reflect Styrian unemployment.

• Read More: Did You Know That Magna Steyr In Austria Has Been Helping Mercedes To Build G-Wagon Since 1979?