A Scandinavian suppliers body says it has been communicating with crisis-hit Saab by text message as it estimates its members could be losing many hundreds of millions of Swedish Krone.
Saab’s Trollhattan factory remains idle again today (13 April) as the automaker struggles to raise further finance, but suppliers are also starting to be severely impacted with reports of one company laying off up to 80 staff.
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Previous estimates by the Scandinavian automotive suppliers association (FKG) had estimated the loss to its members to be in the “tens of millions,” but this number is rapidly being revised upwards.
“It was money I knew was overdue, but it will be much more right now,” FKG managing director Sven-Ake Berglie told just-auto from Sweden. “When I said it was tens of millions, I only counted the money I knew about. It could be many times [that] now.
“It must be as it is a week later and we have to consider all the foreign companies, which are the vast majority of suppliers.”
Extraordinarily, it appears the FKG and Saab have been communicating by text message as the crisis that has seen most of Saab’s 3,800 staff sent home, continues to force a shut-down.
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By GlobalData“We had an SMS conversation with them today” [13 April] said Berglie. “I got the answer back from Saab it was quiet after we had asked them if there was anything new.
“They are quite open to us.”
Berglie said around one hundred FKG members supplied to Saab and added that he was aware of one supplier that had announced it had reduced headcount by 80 temporary staff.
Berglie noted that should redundancies have to be announced, Swedish regulations were quite strict on how they had to be negotiated through agencies and trade unions.
Saab’s main union IF Metall told just-auto this week production could restart tomorrow (14 April), although the FKG is sceptical this will actually happen.
“It is my judgement it could take a least a week to start production,” said Berglie. “Suppliers have also stopped production I think.”
Saab was not immediately available for comment.
