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BL Premium reports that a quarter of SA’s motor dealership employees may lose their jobs this year because of the impact of Covid-19. A major franchised dealer group confirmed at the weekend it was preparing retrenchment letters for 23% of its staff, including dealership heads.
Estimates of total job losses across SA’s 1,600 franchised new-vehicle dealers, which employ about 60,000 people, range from 20% to 30%. Many used-vehicle dealers are also preparing to trim numbers. The cuts are mainly because of dramatic revenue losses, which will continue in coming months. But it is also because, forced into extreme efficiency measures by post-lockdown restrictions, they have learnt to do more with less. According to one dealer principal from another group: “When we were limited to 30% of workshop repair staff, we were able to work at 50% of capacity. We’ve found we can exist with fewer people.” Mark Dommisse of the National Automobile Dealers Association said job losses would have been even more severe if the government had not allowed dealers to jump the post-lockdown queue and resume business in mid-May under level 4 of the Covid-19 risk-adjusted strategy. They were originally on level 2. Even so, there has been no dramatic transformation of fortunes for most dealers.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by David Furlonger at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page