Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
Chinese electric car company BYD is building its first European production plant in Szeged, the regional centre of the Southern Great Plain region. Production is set to begin in the second half of 2025, with a personnel of 3,000 to 4,000 staff members. Once at full capacity, the production site will manufacture 300,000 electric vehicles annually and employ some 10,000 workers, according to the plans. The firm has already started recruiting robot operators.
Since the unemployment rate in Szeged is very low and in fact, the town is facing a labour shortage, it will be a real challenge to ensure the necessary staffing levels. The major expressed hope that a significant part of the workforce can be recruited from the graduates of the vocational training centres operating in the town. Also, a number of workers currently working at the Mercedes plant in Kecskemét may switch jobs and join the BYD team, considering the uncertainties surrounding the future prospects of the German auto firms.
However, according to the major, it seems inevitable that a substantial number of foreign workers will be employed to fill the staffing gaps. Some of these workers may come from nearby Northern Serbia, a region with a substantial Hungarian minority. But many of the guest workers are expected to arrive from China, the Philippines, and other Eastern Asian countries, even though the company expressed a preference for primarily relying on the local workforce to operate the Hungarian production site.
Eurofound (2023), BYD Auto Hungary, Business expansion in Hungary, factsheet number 202349, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/202349.
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