Goodyear suffering from flat tyres

If the car industry is not doing well then needless to say the tyre industry suffers as well, as is the case with Goodyear. In Q4 2008, the rubber giant lost 330 million USD compared with its profits of 55 million USD for the same period in 2007.

Operating costs are being drastically reduced at Goodyear and the plan is to save 700 million USD this year. Part of the cost reduction is to be made by a further cutback in staffing of 5,000 employees. Over the last three years, cost savings of 1.8 billion USD were achieved by redundancies, reducing production and closing production plants. Goodyear is planning a further cutback in production by 15,000 to 25,000 tyres in order to match production to demand.