Stellantis Korea to dismiss workers amid plummeting sales

Stellantis Korea Managing Director Jacob Aumann speaks during the Peugeot Brand Day event at SJ Kunsthalle in Seoul in this May file photo. Courtesy of Stellantis Korea

Stellantis Korea, which sells Jeep, Peugeot, Citroen and DS Automobiles vehicles here, will introduce a voluntary redundancy program to deal with the challenging business environment, the multinational carmaker’s Korean unit said Monday.

“Due to rapid changes in market conditions, it has been necessary for us to be more agile toward demand from the market, so we are restructuring our organization and workforce,” a Stellantis Korea spokeswoman said.

However, the latest decision has been attributed to its sluggish sales in the Korean market.

According to local car market tracker Car Is You, the number of Jeeps newly registered in Korea during the third quarter stood at 3,400, down 35 percent year-on-year. The number of newly registered Peugeot cars was 1,347. In contrast, 6,049 Toyota vehicles were newly registered here during the same period.

As part of efforts to address the problem, Stellantis Korea recently cut the price of the Peugeot 3008 SUV by 3.3 million won ($2,400). The price of the Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited SUV also fell to 76.9 million won in the Korean market from 85.5 million won.

These efforts, however, do not seem to have been effective enough to prevent the oncoming workforce reduction at Stellantis Korea.

The Stellantis sign outside the Chrysler Technology Center in Michigan is seen in this 2021 file photo. AP-Yonhap

The company declined to disclose the number of employees to leave and the amount of compensation to be offered.

“I heard that employees leaving the company will receive money equivalent to several months of their salaries,” a Stellantis Korea worker wrote on Blind, an anonymous chat app for verified employees.

The carmaker’s headquarters has also laid off workers in other countries. In April, the company offered voluntary buyouts to 33,500 U.S. employees, citing plans to streamline operations.

“We’re facing an incredibly brutal scenario. On the one hand, we’re supposed to compete with Chinese rivals which are 25 percent less expensive. On the other hand, we’re told to make do with the extra 40 percent in costs driven by the electrification of cars,” Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said in July.