Toyota Announces Temporary Shutdown of All North American Fa

April 04, 2011

Toyota Motor Co (NYSE:TM) announced earlier today that they will have to close down all of their North American factories by the end of this month due to a parts shortage caused by the damage from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.The temporary shutdown of the company's 13 factories in North America is inevitable, the company said. How long the production stoppage will last is unknown. 25,000 workers will be affected, but no layoffs are expected.The factories have been using parts from their inventories and those that were shipped before the disaster, but those supplies are running out.Spokesman Mike Goss said, "We're going to get to a point this month where that gap in the pipeline starts to show up. So we'll have to suspend production for a while," Toyota gets about 15% of the parts for cars and trucks built in North America from Japan, "but still you have to have them all to build the vehicles," Goss said.Shares of Toyota Motor are trading down 1.29% at $79.47.