Swedish carmaker Saab, now owned by Dutch auto maker Spyker (SPYKR.AS), plans to cut its workforce by around 200 employees, an eighth of the workforce, a union official said on Friday.
Hakan Skott, a union representative at Saab, which is based in the western town of Trollhattan, told Reuters the company had told staff it would lay off 200 workers, out of 1,600 employed.
No one at the company was immediately available to comment.
"I'm not exactly surprised (about the layoffs). We reduced our sales forecast just a couple of weeks ago and there is a decline in sales every year around Christmas and at the end of the year," Skott said.
"I'm sure that by February-March we will see an upward trend and people will buy cars again," he added.
The 63-year-old Swedish company was on its last legs last year when GM (GM.N) GM.UL decided to sell it. Spyker stepped in at the 11th hour and the links to GM, which refloated in a record-making IPO this week, remain strong for Saab.
The future of Saab rests on finding more manufacturing partners and cutting unit production costs, its top executives told Reuters on Tuesday.
Chief Executive Jan Ake Jonsson said on Tuesday Saab's target is to break even at sales of 85,000 cars annually, whereas it currently needs "north of 100,000" sales to break even.
On October 29 Spyker cut Saab's sales target to 30,000-35,000 cars in 2010 from a previous target of 45,000.
This was down from a forecast of 60,000 made in February.
"There is absolutely no reason to worry. Our plans for the future still stand. Next year, we will build 80,000 cars," business daily Dagens Industri on Friday quoted Spyker's chief executive Victor Muller as saying.
He also said the staff being laid off were temporary employees.
"You take them aboard when you need them and when they are not needed, they are not on board," the paper quoted Muller as saying.
