CMC Motors has announced that it will be sending up to 169 of its employees home. The company which is a subsidiary of the Al Futtaim Group made the announcement on April 24, 2023.
The company has blamed the move on loss of business and a decline on orders for passenger vehicles. “The market has experienced a considerable decline in the passenger vehicle business due to poor economic conditions,” the company said.
CMC Motors said that this had forced vehicle manufacturers with who it had distributorship deals to cancel. “Three leading brands Ford, Suzuki and Mazda have terminated and, or given notice of termination of their distributorship contracts starting today until quarter three of 2023,” said CMC.
CMC said that these terminations and the prevailing tough economy had necessitated the declaration of the affected employees as redundant. The employees are in both managerial and unionisable categories.
This is not the first time that CMC Motors is sending a huge batch of workers home. In 2018, CMC sent 110 employees packing. The car distributor claimed that the move was necessitated by the alignment of its business.
According to the company, the loss of franchise deals had impacted its sales thereby forcing it to cut down on staff costs. In 2017, CMC had also fired about 160 workers.
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“We lost Jaguar Land Rover, VW, and Ford. We are not getting revenue so we cannot continue keeping people,” CMC had said.