Volkswagen AG is requiring employees at one of its factories in southern China to work extended hours to compensate for production losses after staff came down sick with Covid, a person familiar with the matter said, as a wave of infections snakes across the country.
(Bloomberg) — Volkswagen AG is requiring employees at one of its factories in southern China to work extended hours to compensate for production losses after staff came down sick with Covid, a person familiar with the matter said, as a wave of infections snakes across the country.
The German carmaker has arranged for staff in several workshops at a plant it operates with China FAW Group Co. in Foshan, Guangdong province to work 11 hours a shift, with two shifts operating each day, for at least three days, as it seeks to make up for lost output before the year’s end, according to the person familiar with the plans, and a company memo seen by Bloomberg News.
Workers at the plant generally work eight hours per shift. The stepped-up schedule started Dec. 19 and will run through Dec. 21 and applies to some employees on the welding, painting, general assembly and repair lines, the person said, asking not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The alterations were made after too many workers got Covid and called in sick, the person said. A representative for VW in China didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
China is witnessing a surge in Covid infections after it abandoned stringent pandemic restrictions last month and plunged headlong into reopening. The sudden transition from a nation determined to eliminate Covid to one that’s resigned to live with it poses particular challenges for manufacturers, which need a certain volume of working staff to meet delivery targets. A wave of infections could disrupt global supply chains and the wider economy.
While the first big Covid outbreaks since the shift have been concentrated in major cities like Beijing, there are signs of spread into manufacturing regions already. Covid has ripped through a workshop at BMW AG’s factory in Shenyang, northern China, with a new group of workers brought in to replace the sick.
Read more: China’s Factories Hoard Medicine, Split Shifts as Covid Descends
VW has several large production hubs in China including Changchun in the north, Shanghai in the east and Foshan in the south. All three of those saw fallout earlier this year from China’s hardcore Covid Zero policy, including weeks-long lockdowns. The automaker at times kept plant workers on site under so-called closed-loop systems to keep production running.
Despite those efforts however, VW still had to occasionally shutter production or change production schedules.
The latest move to salvage production before 2022 closes out shows some manufacturers are making every effort to meet output targets despite rising Covid case numbers. There have been reports of companies asking workers to come in even if they’re sick or to come back after a few days of rest.
FAW-Volkswagen’s Foshan plant has an annual production capacity of 600,000 units and makes both VW and Audi models.
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