Holden confirms Cruze production shut-down date

October 7 is shaping up to be a very bleak day for Australia’s automotive industry, with Holden announcing it will cease Cruze production at its Elizabeth plant – the same day Ford closes its Broadmeadows production line.

Holden had previously announced it would end Cruze production this October, but confirmed the date with employees and the end of their shift on Friday.

In a statement, Holden confirmed 320 jobs would go at their Elizabeth plant. “These are the same redundancies confirmed by Holden in February this year, when the company notified staff, suppliers and external stakeholders of the advanced schedule for ending Cruze production.

“Holden’s key priority at all times is to support our people and to manage this scheduled wind-down of manufacturing in a way that treats our employees with respect and dignity.

All Holden employees have counselling services available to them, as well as career coaching, training and job searching assistance.”

The statement stressed there would be “absolutely no change to Holden’s plan to continue building Commodore at Elizabeth until the end of 2017”.

October’s closure will end five and half years of Cruze production that saw nearly 125,000 Cruze models built and sold in Australia. At its peak, annual Cruze sales reached 33,000.

The Cruze will be the last small car to be manufactured in Australia. It will be replaced by the all-new Astra, as part of Holden’s plan to launch 24 new models by 2020, refreshing or replacing every single model in the Holden portfolio.