Thai auto-parts maker suspends work at one plant for two months amid industry slump

[snoop1130]

Thai auto-parts maker suspends work at one plant for two months amid industry slump

 

Reuters file photo

 

BANGKOK, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Thailand’s biggest auto parts manufacturer, Thai Summit Group, said it will suspend operations at one of its 26 factories for two months, due to a drop in orders from automakers.

 

Domestic car sales have slumped in Thailand, which is also a regional production and export base for some of the world’s top vehicle manufacturers. The sector accounts for about 10% of the Thai economy.

 

In a letter seen by Reuters, Thai Summit, which makes chassis frames, wiring and electrical components, told employees and the government it would suspend operations of one plant from Oct. 26 until Dec. 25.

 

The unlisted company declined to comment on how much of its overall annual production capacity that would affect.

 

In other signs of a slowdown in the sector, General Motors cut about 350 jobs in August, equivalent to more than 15% of its workforce in the country.

 

French auto supplier Valeo and Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp have also introduced early retirment programmes.

 

In September, Thai car sales fell 14.1% from a year earlier, down for a fourth consecutive month. (Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng; Additional reporting by Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-10-24

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[Scot123]

Don't worry the Thai Baht will keep on rising. Nothing to worry about. Don't you dare say recession........ or crash..... 

[Creasy]

Teflon Thailand slowly losing its invincibility.

[colinneil]

Now we are beginning to see what is really going on, not only this car parts firm, but many others having similar problems.

Yesterday 1 of my wifes cousins visited us, wife asked her, why are you here, what about your job in Bangkok?

Cousin answered, company having serious problems, now we are only working 2 weeks in every month.

Boss said to her, that is the best we can do, the strong baht is causing major problems for us, we are struggling to export are goods.

[ChipButty]

The 1% Rich get richer, the rest will suffer on local basis I can see the cleaners have got no money because nobody is renting properties some builders that have a camp on a plot of land I drive by have not been to work for a week they were normally gone at 7-30 am 

[Assurancetourix]

All that you write will see itself concretize very quickly "to the city";

the reductions of working hours and even days worked will get worse;
bankruptcies and temporary or permanent closures of factories will increase significantly;
But as Scott123 rightly notices (he forgot one or two emoticons (smileys) in his text, do not take it to the first degree, of course!), The strong baht is the solution 
As I live in a very rural province, I am beginning to see the effects of this blind policy that enriches the 1% and weakens but slowly the rest of the population.
Fewer empty bottles and cans in the pits;
Less and less heavy truck traffic on the roads;
Line coaches that almost all run empty in both directions ...

[mikebell]

Going down; going down.  Only the rich go up in Thailand.

[happy chappie]

Let's look on the bright side,the gold pawn shops are going to be doing well.

the country is falling apart as the seams.corrupt and run by a bunch of unqualified cronies.

thailand has failed to make anything from the good times its had since I came here in 2005.tourism,manufacturing,exports all going down the pan and there's more to come.

[DannyCarlton]

9 minutes ago, happy chappie said:

Let's look on the bright side,the gold pawn shops are going to be doing well.

Absolutely. Irresistable price on selling gold currently. I've just filched all my wife's gold out of her jewelry box and off to the gold shop shortly.

[baansgr]

House of cards...domino effect..overnight the economy will collapse, and its not long coming

[jvs]

Very easy to say they are laying off people for a month!!!

With or without pay?

Also here in cha-am hotel staff getting less hours and a lottery system

is used to send people home for a week at the time without pay of course

but you are welcome to resign if you dont like it.

This is going to have a snowball effect of course,soon these people will not

be able to pay their loans on time and this is when the sh t will hit the fan!!!

[happy chappie]

6 minutes ago, DannyCarlton said:

Absolutely. Irresistable price on selling gold currently. I've just filched all my wife's gold out of her jewelry box and off to the gold shop shortly.

Your my type of guy???? I'm holding out on my move on hers and in the meantime I'm window shopping for a big bike.

[RichardColeman]

I'm surprised at this story, there's probably a huge surge in car sales in January after the x-mas and new year mass holiday road death bonanza

[Kinnock]

Too much domestic debt amongst normal working class Thai folk to buy a new car.

 

The BITEC car show a few months ago was unusually quiet - except for the Mercedes and Bentley stands.

 

Builders of low cost housing must also be hurting.

 

If the top 0.001% only look after themselves, you end up like North Korea, Venezuela, Lebanon.

[Rookiescot]

23 minutes ago, DannyCarlton said:

Absolutely. Irresistable price on selling gold currently. I've just filched all my wife's gold out of her jewelry box and off to the gold shop shortly.

Might I suggest after you have sold it you keep on driving. ????

[Kaoboi Bebobp]

And it isn't going to get better anytime soon. Reuters just released a major poll of economists (does this every 6 months) from 46 economies. 

 

Deeper global slowdown still more likely

 

Quote

Analysis of Reuters polls taken this month covering 46 economies showed the growth and inflation outlook over the next two years for around 90% of them was either downgraded from the previous poll [6 months ago] or left unchanged. 

 

The consensus for global economic growth next year was cut to 3.1%, the lowest since polling began, from 3.3% in the previous poll in July and lower than the International Monetary Fund’s latest downgraded forecast of 3.4%.

 

The range of forecasts showed lower highs and lows, suggesting the global growth slowdown will worsen next year.

 

Thailand is among the growth downgrades, and Vietnam is one of the very few growth upgrades. 

[Denim]

Relax. It's just another part of ' returning happiness to the people '

 

As more people are made redundant they can stay at home and relax. No eating because no money to buy food but hey ... play with your smartphone and the hunger will go away.

 

Aren't the Junta great guys.

[Denim]

4 hours ago, colinneil said:

Yesterday 1 of my wifes cousins visited us, wife asked her, why are you here, what about your job in Bangkok?

Cousin answered, company having serious problems, now we are only working 2 weeks in every month.

Boss said to her, that is the best we can do, the strong baht is causing major problems for us, we are struggling to export are goods.

 

Sister in law made redundant a month ago from her garment factory for same reason. She did get 50,000 baht redundancy but when that is gone we will be the next resort ☹️

[bronzedude]

This is the only article that makes sense of all the articles about Thai economy lately. Getting tired reading about tourism and banking figures being tossed around. This article shows the real picture with loss of jobs and early retirement packages.

[Baerboxer]

9 hours ago, Scot123 said:

Don't worry the Thai Baht will keep on rising. Nothing to worry about. Don't you dare say recession........ or crash..... 

 

Just saw a Bloomberg news flash on my mobile saying ThB just hit a 6 year high and that central bankers aren't able to do much about it.

[Baerboxer]

1 hour ago, Kinnock said:

Too much domestic debt amongst normal working class Thai folk to buy a new car.

 

The BITEC car show a few months ago was unusually quiet - except for the Mercedes and Bentley stands.

 

Builders of low cost housing must also be hurting.

 

If the top 0.001% only look after themselves, you end up like North Korea, Venezuela, Lebanon.

 

Spot on! There are articles about pointing out the high debt of a considerable number of Thai households. Still plenty of empty houses in our Mobaan where people have defaulted on mortgage payments and banks have taken possession. Sadly all left to just deteriorate. 

 

Wifey tells me that all the neighbors she's pally with, most of whom have 2-4 cars, all buy their all important 'face' car i.e. the Benz, Porsche, Lexus, etc on loans; in addition to mortgages.

[HiSoLowSoNoSo]

1 hour ago, Denim said:

Relax. It's just another part of ' returning happiness to the people '

 

As more people are made redundant they can stay at home and relax. No eating because no money to buy food but hey ... play with your smartphone and the hunger will go away.

 

Aren't the Junta great guys.

Yes they should thank the military government that they don't get obese. 

[Yinn]

21 minutes ago, Cadbury said:

These links about foreign countries have nothing whatsoever to do with the story which is about Thailand car and carparts industries in decline. You appear to have difficulty reading English? I am so sorry for you. If there is any way I can help, I would be glad to.

The "big picture" Thailand story is in this link itself. Car and car parts manufacturing going downhill fast. Please try harder to keep on song.

 

will suspend operations at one of its 26 factories for two months, due to a drop in orders from automakers.

 

Nice you care so much about some Thai worker. You beautiful guy. But no problem. Thailand has 4 million more job than people. Full employment. Everyone have the job.  Hard for business to find worker. 

 

If it get bad to much, we can just send back some Burma, Cambodia and Laos people. Give there job to thai people.

You can stop worry to much now. Relax my friend. Will be alright.

[andytime]

Exports are almost up and the tourists are almost coming (according to Koolaid drinkers TAT) but not according to market maker TG who still hasn't worked out why people don't want to fly older planes for 40% more.....…..BUT helicopters, submarines, munitions, pollution and hubs are up. 

[metisdead]

Some baiting troll posts and the replies have been removed. Off topic posts in reply to the baiting troll posts have been removed. 

[Chazar]

5 hours ago, jvs said:

soon these people will not

be able to pay their loans on time and this is when the sh t will hit the fan!

One of  my Wifes  useless idle brothers  called her 8 times the other day to  borrow  money, hes  already borrowed off about 5 other  people 400k total............Wife told him to bog off

[Cake Monster]

I am surprised that its taken this long for a large Employer to make these kind of cuts to their Operations.

What is also alarming is the number of other Auto sector Companies that are suffering.

If this kind of thing is happening in the Auto Sector, you can believe its as bad, if not worse in other Manufacturing Sectors.

Rough road ahead me thinks.

[metisdead]

Off topic posts and replies have been removed. 

[Yadon Toploy]

On 10/25/2019 at 12:13 PM, Yinn said:

 

will suspend operations at one of its 26 factories for two months, due to a drop in orders from automakers.

 

Nice you care so much about some Thai worker. You beautiful guy. But no problem. Thailand has 4 million more job than people. Full employment. Everyone have the job.  Hard for business to find worker. 

 

If it get bad to much, we can just send back some Burma, Cambodia and Laos people. Give there job to thai people.

You can stop worry to much now. Relax my friend. Will be alright.

You are a liar or a troll  i suspect both.

 

You are certainly not Khon Thai. 

 

I have Thai friends that are affected by this closure and they find your comments repugnant.

[tjo o tjim]

On 10/25/2019 at 12:13 AM, Yinn said:

will suspend operations at one of its 26 factories for two months, due to a drop in orders from automakers.

Generally I agree that this comes down more to anecdote, but that is a 2.5% drop *published* assuming all factories are equal for the quarter.  The more likely scenario though is that the other 25 factories are down a more manageable 5-10% (break-even), and this factory was losing money, which would be more like a 10% drop for the quarter.

 

Things will likely be fine for people with a buffer and limited debt, but the 10% most vulnerable will be in trouble, and the next 10% become at risk.  This isn’t unique to Thailand either; it is generally true the world over.  But, what is (more) unique to Thailand is the government denial.