Around two lakh jobs have been cut across automobile dealerships in India in the last three months as vehicle retailers take the last resort of cutting manpower to tide over the impact of the unprecedented sales slump, according to the industry body FADA (Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations)- PTI
With no immediate signs of recovery, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) feared that the job cuts may continue with more showrooms being shut in the near future. Therefore we seek the reduction of GST to provide relief to the auto industry.
“The majority of job cuts have happened in the last three months. It started around May and continued through June and July,” said Ashish Harsharaj Kale, President of FADA
He further added, “Right now most of the cuts which have happened are in front-end sales jobs but if this (slowdown) continues, then even the technical jobs will be affected because if we are selling less then we will also service less, so it is a cycle.”
The two lakh job cuts in the last three months are over and above the 32,000 people who lost employment when 286 showrooms were closed across 271 cities in the 18-month period ended April this year, he added.
As per the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) figures, vehicle wholesale across all categories declined by 12.35% to 60,85,406 units in April-June against 69,42,742 units in the same period last year.
Passenger vehicles (PV) segment has been the worst-hit with sales continuing to decline for almost a year now. In July, market leader Maruti Suzuki reported a 36.3% drop in its domestic PV wholesales, while Hyundai saw a dip of 10%.
M&M sales were down by 16%, Tata Motors’ PV sales fell 31% while that of Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL) also came down 48.67% during the month.
