With nearly half of Slovakia’s industrial output focused on the production of automobiles, the worsening outlook for European sales is causing panic, according to Idnes.cz. It writes that when Volkswagen’s Bratislava factory announced its first firings in a decade, it came as a severe shock. Roughly 3,000 employees were fired from the factory, which produces the Touareg and the Porsche Cayenne. The paper quotes Reuters as writing that 12 percent of Slovakia’s GDP is related to the production of automobiles as are one in ten jobs. Now a mature market player, Slovakia is being hit by problems from new competitors from Southeast Europe, by the increasing importance of electric cars on the market and by global trade tensions. Volkswagen is planning to build a new factory, but it will most likely be in Turkey.
