Friday 5th September 2008

Bentley Staff on Three-Day Week

Economic slump slows production

---

Nearly four thousand production line staff at Bentley are having their shifts cut from four days a week down to three. This news follows on from Land Rovers announcement last week that some of its production lines were being cut to four day weeks.

Bentley has seen a 16% fall in sales so far this year, mostly in the American market, due to the global economic slowdown. According to the firm it is a temporary measure which is necessary to safeguard the brands value and security throughout what it expects to be a challenging coming year.

Staff will remain on full pay under a 'time-banking' agreement until production is returned to normal.

[Antj]

I wish people would stop describing it as a Global slowdown as it is most definitely not Global

[J111]

On the plus side, if you go into the dealership and suck air through your teeth at the price, the incentives for keeping a Bentley order alive are considerable.
(Worst "I'm buying a Bentley" post evar, I know)

Antj said:

I wish people would stop describing it as a Global slowdown as it is most definitely not Global

Go on then, where is there a significant market for Bentley that isn't suffering from slow growth and rapidly rising costs of living ?

[Fotofrog]

Dubai sounds like a good place right now for Bentley to sell cars.. LOADS of money - they dont seem to be suffering this "global slowdown"

[Burnham]

J111 said:

Go on then, where is there a significant market for Bentley that isn't suffering from slow growth and rapidly rising costs of living ?

China or Russia?

I quite like the idea of a 3 day week...

Edited by Burnham on Friday 5th September 12:46

[uremaw]

???

Erm, i'm fairly positive it IS a fairly widespread economic slowdown among the major economic nations - including but not restricted to US, UK, Germany, France, Japan AND China. Pretty sure it's been reported fairly extensively in the press. Just, you know, not the ones with red tops and 'BB Chanelle' on the cover. Or the Daily Mail.

[J111]

Burnham said:

J111 said:

Go on then, where is there a significant market for Bentley that isn't suffering from slow growth and rapidly rising costs of living ?

China or Russia?

Russia I'll grant you, but China's suffering from those problems hitting its biggest customer, and they've got 9% official inflation at home.

[gumsie]

It's probably because it's bluff puffed out shape is so big and ugly, so now that the smog is rising in China they can see it clearly and they are opting for good looking gas guzzlers.

[sprinter885]

So...might it be a good time to talk to Bentley about an order??
As IF it was remotely likely!

[Sivraj]

Fair play to Bentley for thinking ahead.
Plus the employees are on full pay that they will work back at a later date and no redundancies (yet).
Ensures that Bentley is in a strong position when the market does pick up or need to increase production.
(Call it what you want sales are down and they need to protect themselves)

Edited by Sivraj on Friday 5th September 15:35

[LuS1fer]

I think they're now too common and I think that the modern buyer is now conditioned to cars being replaced every 5 years or so. It seems like old news and maybe it's now getting unfashionable to be so ostentatious in hard times. Remeber when Rollers went deeply out of fashion in the 80's and it was embarrassing to be seen in one?

And now?

And now what?

[pistonlager]

LuS1fer said:

I think they're now too common and I think that the modern buyer is now conditioned to cars being replaced every 5 years or so. It seems like old news and maybe it's now getting unfashionable to be so ostentatious in hard times. Remeber when Rollers went deeply out of fashion in the 80's and it was embarrassing to be seen in one?

And now?

And now what?

I see bundles of GT's all the time but have only ever seen 1 Azure. They cheapened the brand, like all luxury brands, people only see the new cost, It doesn't matter that your 3 year old GT cost you 120k new and is only worth 50, people still see it as a 120k car. I'd see it as a bargain.
How ever well engineered a Roller is, they're to camp.
Strictly for chauffeurs.
Rollers are for Queens.....both sorts!

[chimaera5.0]

Thanks to all this crazy spending on wars and not supporting British manufacturing industry we now seem incapable of supporting a quality product that is the pride and envy of the world. Although Bentley is BMW owned it is still built by skilled British engineers who for all sorts of snobbery and other tosh are not given the right professional respect and rewards that we can afford to sharks like investment bankers,lawyers and accountants who never produce anything except big bills.

[malibudave]

Errrmmm Bentley is VW owned not BMW!!

[Guybrush]

uremaw said:

???

Erm, i'm fairly positive it IS a fairly widespread economic slowdown among the major economic nations - including but not restricted to US, UK, Germany, France, Japan AND China. Pretty sure it's been reported fairly extensively in the press. Just, you know, not the ones with red tops and 'BB Chanelle' on the cover. Or the Daily Mail.

?? Perhaps you should read what the OECD had to say a few days ago... "...Britain is the worst placed among the world's major economies to withstand the impact of a global slowdown – and the only one forecast to be in recession this year...", according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. "...The British economy will shrink by 0.075 and 0.1 per cent in the third and fourth quarters respectively, says the OECD, an annualised rate of minus 0.3 per cent and minus 0.4 per cent. Two quarters of negative growth satisfy the conventional definition of recession. Every other economy surveyed by the organisation – the US, Germany, France, Italy, the eurozone and Canada and, especially, Japan – will see their economies grow during the remainder of the year..."

Now that's slightly at odds with Brown and co's PR. Don't just rely on the Guardian and the BBC for your subliminal brainwashing.

[pistonlager]

chimaera5.0 said:

Thanks to all this crazy spending on wars and not supporting British manufacturing industry we now seem incapable of supporting a quality product that is the pride and envy of the world. Although Bentley is BMW owned it is still built by skilled British engineers who for all sorts of snobbery and other tosh are not given the right professional respect and rewards that we can afford to sharks like investment bankers,lawyers and accountants who never produce anything except big bills.

ESTATE AGENTS BILLS ARE QUITE HEFTY TOO!

Edited by pistonlager on Friday 5th September 21:00

[Cold Fusion]

Oh dear how sad never mind. The over paid f00tballers have bought their stock of VW Bently's this year.

[J111]

Guybrush said:

uremaw said:

???

Erm, i'm fairly positive it IS a fairly widespread economic slowdown among the major economic nations - including but not restricted to US, UK, Germany, France, Japan AND China. Pretty sure it's been reported fairly extensively in the press. Just, you know, not the ones with red tops and 'BB Chanelle' on the cover. Or the Daily Mail.

?? Perhaps you should read what the OECD had to say a few days ago... "...Britain is the worst placed among the world's major economies to withstand the impact of a global slowdown – and the only one forecast to be in recession this year...", according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. "...The British economy will shrink by 0.075 and 0.1 per cent in the third and fourth quarters respectively, says the OECD, an annualised rate of minus 0.3 per cent and minus 0.4 per cent. Two quarters of negative growth satisfy the conventional definition of recession. Every other economy surveyed by the organisation – the US, Germany, France, Italy, the eurozone and Canada and, especially, Japan – will see their economies grow during the remainder of the year..."

Now that's slightly at odds with Brown and co's PR. Don't just rely on the Guardian and the BBC for your subliminal brainwashing.

The fact that the OECD states Britain is particularly poorly placed to weather the global slowdown indicates that there is a global slowdown

[Callan.T89]

chimaera5.0 said:

Thanks to all this crazy spending on wars and not supporting British manufacturing industry we now seem incapable of supporting a quality product that is the pride and envy of the world. Although Bentley is BMW owned it is still built by skilled British engineers who for all sorts of snobbery and other tosh are not given the right professional respect and rewards that we can afford to sharks like investment bankers,lawyers and accountants who never produce anything except big bills.

While I generally agree with you there is one point I have to disagree on... Wars actually support British manufacturing and the economy, Britains economy has the highest percentage of arms manufacturing and design than any other country in the world thus the more wars there are the more money is put into the economy. Also I believe that only £16 Billion has been spent on the entire Iraq war but £150 Billion is spent each year by the government on Social Security...

And when the economy finally crashes all the bankers, lawyer, accountants and estate agents will be jobless and useless to society and the world will be left the the engineers...

[mrcosmos]

just want to adjust the facts,press always get it wrong.Firstly four thousand are not laid off.Only 400 across both shifts[three thousand,five hundred not affected].Cars are still selling quite well[russia,china,middle east,UK can't get enough cars.Only slight downturn in USA].The reason is probably to accumulate approx 190 hours each to fund the extra manufacturing for GT replacement.Sadly we think they have just jumped on the bad news bandwagon to manipulate a tiny percentage of the workforce.

Edited by mrcosmos on Friday 5th September 22:49

[sjn2004]

mrcosmos said:

just want to adjust the facts,press always get it wrong.Firstly four thousand are not laid off.Only 400 across both shifts[three thousand,five hundred not affected].Cars are still selling quite well[russia,china,middle east,UK can't get enough cars.Only slight downturn in USA].The reason is probably to accumulate approx 190 hours each to fund the extra manufacturing for GT replacement.Sadly we think they have just jumped on the bad news bandwagon to manipulate a tiny percentage of the workforce.

Edited by mrcosmos on Friday 5th September 22:49

Well according to the SMMT figures their sales are down by 40 or so percent the last few months.