Vehicle manufacturer employees to feel credit crunch fallout next?

Not surprisingly, Car sales have been on the slide for a number of months now as consumers have had to batten down the hatches. However, the news this morning that Ford's commercial van plant in Southampton is moving to a four day week from next week shows how the crunch is now biting into the general business community. Apparently, sales of white vans have slowed considerably since August, and managers expect to produce roughly half of the 75, 000 units made annually, in the coming year. No redundancies have been talked about yet at Fords in Southampton, but shorter working weeks for employees will put additional pressure on family finances in the area, where job cuts and short time are beginning to affect workers in other sectors.
Governments and central banks may be doing their level best to sort out and stabilise the banking sector at the present time, but the fallout from this crisis will take its toll on other business sectors for the next 18 to 24 months I believe.