Toyota and Honda Will Hire Part-Timers to Boost Japanese Production

10/22/96

Nikkei English News reports that both Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. will hire more part-time factory workers to meet high demand for sports utility vehicles. They call the new part-timers "seasonal workers" and use them for a period of several months before laying them off.

Toyota plans to produce 14,000-15,000 sport utility vehicles a day between October and December (up 20% over the same period last year). The company will meet those goals by adding 500 part-time workers, raising the number of part-timers it hires to about 2,600, or 6.7% of the workers they employ over all. Part-time workers at Toyota, peaked at 2,780 persons in 1991, when they accounted for 6.6% of the company's total factory workforce. The firm stopped hiring part-time workers in February 1993, but then resumed recruitment in May,1996.

Honda Motor upped its part-time workforce from 2,700 to about 3,100 in October--about 11.9% of the total plant workers. The number surpassed the company's previous peak level of 3,000 part-time workers, which it recorded in March 1990, when part-time employees represented 10.5% of the company's total work force.

Both companies pay less in wages and benefits to part-time workers, and see the hiring of such workers as a good way to save money and cut costs.

Paul Dever -- The Auto Channel