Slow-Selling Maserati Levante Leads FCA To Slash Plant’s Working Hours

The Maserati Levante isn’t selling like hot cakes, and this means that the brand’s parent company, FCA, will have to adjust production to meet the market demand.

According to AutoNews, the automotive giant’s Mirafiori plant, in Turin, Italy, the place where the SUV is being put together since 2016, will cut working hours by 59 percent, until July.

This temporary compromise, which sees Maserati resort to solidarity contracts, is equivalent to the loss of 2,080 jobs, the FIOM union said. As a result, the employees will work less, and therefore be paid less as well.

The action comes in contrast with FCA’s CEO Sergio Marchionne’s statement from 2014, when the automaker presented its five-year investment plan, who said that full employment at their Italian facilities is guaranteed until the end of 2018.

Marchionne changed his statement last month, when he talked to the press at the 2018 Detroit Auto Show, saying that FCA “may need more time”.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Mirafiori factory, which also makes the Alfa Romeo MiTo, had to resort to temporary layoffs for a few days last year as well, when production of the Maserati Levante was halted.

Not only that, but the Italian firm had to temporarily stop assembling the GranTurismo, GranCabrio, Ghibli, and Quattroporte as well, a few months ago.