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Toyota Plans for North American Plants

Toyota has announced that they plan to suspend production at all North American plants for one day. The plants that are located throughout North American are all going to be scheduled for one day in which the plants will be shut down. This is going to affect around 25,000 workers, however, in reality this one day shut down is much better than the plants actually laying people off indefinitely. The major automaker has said that the exact dates of when these plants are going to be shut down is still up in air as they are not sure, however, they should occur between April 15th and April 25th for all the North American plants. 

This is being done due to the part shortage that most automakers are feeling since the earthquake and tsunami that hit the Japan area last month. Thus far, these plants in North America have been using parts that they have had stored in areas for times in which they run low, however, supplies are starting to lower and this is making many people worried. This is why the automaker has made the decision to shut these down for one day in hopes to keep these plants running as long as possible.

There are a few exceptions to the rule with these plants, as the Georgetown, Kentucky plant that makes Toyota's can be expected to be shut down for four days instead of one day. The good news for workers is that the company is providing paid training for those days that they are shut down in order to make sure that workers are still earning a paycheck if they want this option. Otherwise, they can simply take a vacation or leave with no pay day. 

The main goal of Toyota is to keep workers in a job while still being able to send cars out to the dealers. However, with supplies shortages it is getting harder to do this, but it is not impossible as they are proving, just a bit limited.