SEOUL — Manufacturing at Hyundai’s largest manufacturing facility complicated fell by half on Thursday due to part shortages brought on by a truckers’ strike in South Korea, a union official on the automaker mentioned.
The automaker’s Ulsan vegetation operated at about 50 % to 60 % of capability attributable to elements procurement points brought on by the strike.
Hyundai usually builds about 6,000 autos a day at its Ulsan factories together with the high-margin Genesis SUV and Ioniq 5 EV.
With vans unavailable due to the strike, Korean firms are in search of alternative routes to move items. At Kia, an affiliate of Hyundai, staff have been noticed driving newly produced automobiles on the streets to warehouses.
Hyundai mentioned it has skilled partial manufacturing disruptions at its Ulsan vegetation and is monitoring the state of affairs carefully.
Hundreds of South Korean truckers have been on strike this week to protest the surge in gasoline prices, disrupting manufacturing, slowing exercise at ports and posing new dangers to a strained international provide chain.
It is unsure how lengthy the strikes will proceed, however a protracted dispute threatens to have ripple results throughout the globe.
South Korea is a serious provider of semiconductors, smartphones, autos, batteries and electronics items and the most recent industrial motion additional raises uncertainty over provide chains already disrupted by China’s strict COVID restrictions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Container site visitors at ports in South Korea has slowed sharply.
On the port for Ulsan, the commercial hub the place a lot of the strike motion has occurred, container site visitors has been fully suspended since Tuesday.
At Busan port, which accounts for 80 % of the nation’s container exercise, site visitors was all the way down to a 3rd of regular ranges on Friday, a authorities official mentioned.
Some 7,500 members, or about 35 % of the Cargo Truckers Solidarity union, are anticipated to be on strike on Friday, the transport ministry mentioned.
Reuters and Bloomberg contributed to this report