KARACHI: Pakistan Association of Automobile Parts and AccessoriesManufacturer (PAAPAM) Chairman Mohammad Akram has said that car vendorshave shown the door to thousands of daily wage workers, outsourcedemployees and contractual workers from July until date following massivedecline in sales in the overall auto sector.
PAAPAM chairman said that he had received feedback from the association’s400 members across the country regarding layoffs of around 40,000 people inview of the steep fall in parts procurement by the car and other autoassemblers after massive sales drop. He made these remarks in an interviewwith *Dawn*.
“I see more joblessness in case the sales slowdown continues in the nexttwo to three months,” Akram feared while adding that the axe may also fallon permanent workers in the next phase of layoffs. He said the 1QFY20 hadalready ended in red for the entire auto sector while sales are likely toremain depressed until December.
On rising vehicle prices — especially cars, he cited low localisation invehicles as one of the main reasons. “What assemblers claim of achievinghigh localisation is wrong, I can prove it,” he said while adding thathigher localisation would definitely have averted frequent increase inprices of cars on falling rupee against the dollar.
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In the interview Akram also complained that assemblers have beenpersistently increasing vehicle prices but they hesitate in passing onprice increase to vendors for parts procurement.
Only last week, Indus Motor Company (IMC) — the maker of Toyota vehicles —had announced that there will be no layoffs of employees despite slowdownin production. The IMC resumed auto production at 50 per cent capacity fromOct 1 after shutting down plant for last 15 days of September.
