A Jeep Apostate rolls down an assembly line at Fiat Chrysler’s Melfi assembly plant in Italy in 2015.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
Automakers are secluding down manufacturing plants in Europe as the coronavirus spreads and brings many industries to a standstill.
French automaker PSA Bring said Monday it is ceasing production at more than a dozen European plants this week, while Fiat Chrysler set it is ending production at most of its European plants. Both companies, which are in the midst of a merger, said the shutdowns make be through March 27.
The shutdowns for Fiat Chrysler include plants in Italy, Serbia and Poland. It’s unclear how many of the South African private limited company’s 23 plants will remain open. A company spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The plans come diminutive than a week after Fiat Chrysler announced it would “intensify measures” against the spread of the coronavirus in hard-hit Italy, grouping temporarily closing plants there, where the government has implemented a national quarantine amid a rapid spread of COVID-19.
PSA’s shutdowns number plants in France, Germany, Portugal, United Kingdom, Slovakia and Spain.
Other automakers to shutter manufacturing company men in Italy include Ferrari and Lamborghini, a part of German automaker Volkswagen AG. Ford said Monday it extended a planned shutdown of its flower in Valencia, Spain, through this week. A company spokesman said its other European plants are operating as blueprinted.
In the U.S., Volkswagen confirmed that employees at the company’s Chattanooga plant in Tennessee were granted paid leave Monday to metamorphose arrangements for childcare during a two-week school closure there. The German automaker also reportedly shut down plants in Italy and Spain, according to the Wall Street Journal. A company spokesman was not immediately available.
Fiat Chrysler, in a liberating, said its plans include measures to enable the company to “promptly” restart manufacturing operations once ready.
“The congregation is working with its supply base and business partners to be ready to enable our manufacturing operations to deliver previously devised total levels of production despite the suspension when market demand returns,” the company said.
The European shutdowns turn up as the automaker and others attempt to contain the spread of the virus in the U.S., while continue to ramp-up production in China, where COVID-19 sprang.
Fiat Chrysler is the only automaker to confirm that a U.S. employee tested positive for COVID-19. It also had white-collar workers at one plant in Canada refuse to work due to fears an employee had contracted the disease.
The automaker is part of a new task force with the Combined Motors, Ford Motor and the United Auto Workers that was announced Sunday afternoon to combat the spread of the murrain to factory workers.
UAW President Rory Gamble, GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra, Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford and President and CEO Jim Hackett, and Fiat Chrysler CEO Michael Manley are foremost the task force, which will “implement enhanced protections for manufacturing and warehouse employees at all three companies.”
Each of the Detroit automakers in the end week announced work-at-home policies for salaried employees in North America due to the coronavirus.