Toyota Motor is highly likely to halt all manufacturing operations at its factories in North America later this month due to parts supply disruptions caused by the 11 March earthquake disaster in Japan, company officials have said.
Toyota has already halted overtime production and operations on Saturdays at its North American plants following the disaster, but has been continuing to operate using existing inventories during normal hours, Kyodo News reported.
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The automaker has apparently judged that continuing production during normal hours would be difficult as parts manufacturers in Japan have been lagging behind in recovering output. The decision is likely to affect Toyota’s new vehicle sales in the United States, which is its main market.
The scale and the duration of the expected shutdown have yet to be decided, but all of Toyota’s 14 factories in North America could be affected, the officials said, adding that the decision is not finalised.
”We have communicated to team members, associates and dealers here that some production interruptions in North America are likely,” Toyota said in a statement. ”It’s too early to predict location or duration,” it said.
Toyota will not lay off employees in the event of a shutdown but will respond with measures including assigning them to tasks aimed at improving business, they said.
