Machinery manufacturer Engel (Schwertberg / Austria; www.engelglobal.com) is likely to introduce short-time working on 1 April. The agreement reached with the staff and the trade union will initially apply for three months.

All three Austrian sites (Schwertberg, Dietach and St. Valentin) with a total workforce of 1,900 are affected. In addition, an average of 100 employees will be temporarily laid off in the months from April to June, in each case for one month, and then taken on again. The measures aim to avoid any permanent redundancies.

The slump in the automotive industry has evidently also resulted in a dramatic fall in orders at Engel. More than half the injection moulding machines manufactured by the company go to this industry and its suppliers. An Engel spokeswoman was unable to say how large the "massive" fall in incoming orders actually was. Managing Director Peter Neumann commented "It is impossible at present to say when the economy will recover and when investment in the auto industry will pick up again."