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PARIS - French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen announced plans Thursday to slash 3,550 jobs as the automobile sector struggles with the global economic crisis.
The job cuts could affect assembly-line workers, managers and office staff in all of the firm's plants under the plan that provides for voluntary departures, a statement from the car company said.
Initially, the firm had announced 2,700 job losses, but later announced that it would seek to trim a further 850 from the headcount at its plant in the western town of Rennes through voluntary redundancy.
France's motor sector employs, directly or indirectly, 10 per cent of the country's workforce, and companies have shut down several plants temporarily and sent workers home.
Renault has also announced that it would cut 6,000 jobs in Europe, including 4,900 in France.
Peugeot Citroen and Renault have been hard hit by a sharp drop in new car sales in France. Sales were down 7.3 per cent in October from the same month last year, according to the automobile manufacturers' association CCFA.
The association's spokesman Francois Roudier said October was "a month of crisis" for the French car industry as anxious consumers held off on new purchases.
Motor construction by Renault, PSA Peugeot Citroen and some smaller firms directly employed 275,000 people in France last year.
- AFP/ir
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