Stellantis Temporarily Cuts 5,400 Jobs And Idles Plants As Trump Tariffs Hit Hard
Temporary job cuts are spread across five facilities, two plants in Mexico and Canada will pause production
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by Chris Chilton
Stellantis is the first American automaker to take action in the wake of new import tariffs.
It is temporarily letting go of 900 workers across five sites in the US and 4,500 in Canada.
Canada’s Windsor factory will shut for two weeks, Mexico’s Toluca plant for four weeks.
The entire world is reeling from the slew of import tariffs introduced yesterday by Donald Trump, and Stellantis has moved swiftly to minimize its exposure to financial pain, announcing job cuts and factory shutdowns.
With auto imports to the US now subject to a devastating 25 percent tariff that carmakers have no way of swallowing, Stellantis revealed it was laying off 900 US-based employees and 4,500 hourly workers in Canada, according to reports.
More: The Most American-Made Cars Least Affected By Trump’s Sweeping Tariffs
From Monday, April 7, production at Stellantis’s Windsor Assembly Plant in Ontario, Canada, will be paused for two weeks. The facility currently builds the Chrysler Pacifica minivan and the recently released Dodge Charger Daytona EV, though lackluster demand for the new electric muscle car means no one other than the workers left twiddling their thumbs is likely to notice.
Also scheduled to take some unexpected time off starting next week is the automaker’s Toluca plant in Mexico. The Jeep Compass and Wagoneers S EV built there both fall foul of the new tariffs, but neither will be making its way down the production line for some time because Stellantis has opted to halt production for the rest of the month.
Employees in Mexico will still be required to come to work as normal during the shutdown, a Stellantis spokesperson told CNBC, though who knows what they’re going to do all day. That shop floor ought to be spotless when the lines are cranked back into life in May.
The automaker’s North American boss confirmed in an email to employees sent on Thursday night and seen by CNBC that the actions were directly linked to Trump’s tariff policy.
“We are continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects of these tariffs on our operations, but also have decided to take some immediate actions, including temporarily pausing production at some of our Canadian and Mexican assembly plants,” Filosa wrote.
“Those actions will impact some employees at several of our U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities that support those operations.”
Stellantis sales were already falling before the tariffs came into force, dropping 12 percent in Q1 to 293,000 units. Dodge was hit particularly hard; its deliveries were down 49 percent to 21,731, partly due to the gap left in the lineup by the demise of the gas-powered Charger and Challenger.
Image credits: Stellantis
