South Korean President Moon Jae-in spoke out for the first time on General Motors’ decision to shutter its Gunsan assembly plant in the southwest part of the country and called for government support to assist affected workers.
According to a Reuters report published on Monday, the South Korean president asked his administration to look “aggressively” into support for Gunsan. One option may be declaring the city an “employment crisis area,” and government aid could come to laid-off workers.
GM’s move to shut the factory down comes as a blow to President Moon’s pledge to boost job creation in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. The Gunsan plant employs 2,000 workers; GM Korea employs 16,000 workers altogether. The automaker also launched a voluntary redundancy program for all workers.
The Gunsan plant has been operating at 20 percent capacity in recent years and has built the Chevrolet Cruze and Chevrolet Orlando. Workers at the plant called the shutdown a “death sentence” and vowed protests and potentially a strike.
Comments
This getting embarrassing now that even the government is getting involved. I’m expecting a full withdraw from South Korea sometime this year. Whether by selling their assets to their Chinese partners or just taking the brunt of the loss on the whole thing.
This is what happens when you do business with people who think they are entitled to employment.
“Whether by selling their assets to their Chinese partners”
This won’t happen. There are no prospective Chinese buyers and the government won’t sell to a Chinese buyer, because that was already tried before and failed.
“do business with people who think they are entitled to employment”
What a racist disparagement against the working people and the whole Korean nation.
Disgusting.