Hyundai Motor Co. may fail to achieve its sales target in September due to labor strikes at its South Korean plants, a company executive with direct knowledge of the sales told Reuters. Hyundai’s employees at its South Korean plants, which build almost half of its vehicles sold around the world, initiated a series of partial strikes and refused to work overtime for five days in July and 21 days in August. The walkouts were the first strikes to hit Hyundai in four years. Hyundai may also fail to achieve its sales target for its South Korean home market, which accounts for around 15 percent of the carmaker’s total sales, in August, the company executive added to Reuters.
The company executive, however, said that Hyundai, as well as its affiliate Kia Motors, will be able to reach its sales target for the full year of 2012 since they could make up lost production with extra work later in the year. The company executive did not specify how much of Hyundai’s output will be lost due to the strikes as well as the carmaker’s sales target for August and September 2012.
As of Tuesday, the strikes at Hyundai resulted to a production loss of 74,618 vehicles worth KRW1.55 trillion ($1.36 billion). Hyundai’s union is set to hold another partial strike this week while holding another round of wage discussions with the management. The carmaker lost KRW1.6 billion in lost production when workers held a series of strikes in 2006.
