Business

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Business Watch

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 04/4/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Parts shortage bad omen

TORONTO -- A parts shortage that shut down two Chrysler plants in Ontario this week is a harbinger of things to come if governments don't take immediate steps to protect the auto parts industry, suppliers say.

Chrysler's assembly plants in Brampton, west of Toronto, and Windsor, across the U.S. border from Detroit, remained closed Friday due to a shortage of die-cast aluminum engine and transmission mounts, and the company said both plants would be down Monday too. The shortage came after 100 workers were laid off from a parts plant near Windsor.

Some reports say Chrysler, which had to depend on $250 million from the federal and Ontario governments to make its Canadian payroll commitments this week, was behind on its payments to the supplier, but Chrysler hasn't confirmed or denied it.

March jobless rate 8.5%

WASHINGTON -- Unemployment in the United Sates zoomed to 8.5 per cent last month, the highest in a quarter-century, as employers axed 663,000 more workers and pushed the jobless ranks past 13 million. The hard times were only expected to get harder -- a painful 10 per cent jobless rate before long.

The current rate would be even higher -- 15.6 per cent -- if it included laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have had to settle for part-time work because they can't do any better. That's the highest on record for that number in figures that go back to 1994. The jobless rate is expected to reach 10 per cent by year's end.

Truck plant shutting down

CHATHAM, Ont. -- Layoff notices have gone out to all remaining employees at the Navistar truck plant in Chatham, Ont.

The notices would take effect June 27, just three days before the company's current contract with the workers expires. In total, approximately 280 plant workers are being let go and 65 office employees. The company already has had two round of layoffs this year involving close to 700 employees.

Ex-CEO's pension blasted

EDINBURGH, Scotland -- Angry Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders demanded that former chief executive Fred Goodwin return some of his multimillion-pound pension pot Friday in the first major stockholders session since the bank's near collapse last year.

Investors heckled chairman Philip Hampton as he explained the £700,000 annual pension, worth about C$1.28 million for Goodwin, was being investigated.

"Fred Goodwin left with a clear contract, but whether it is watertight is being investigated by more lawyers than you could shake a stick at," Hampton told shareholders.

-- From the news services

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 4, 2009 B11

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