“The situation is worrying and threatening. We lost more than 2,000 jobs between February and July, and if we add indirect and informal jobs, we’d have around 5,000 people,” the union’s president, Daniel Dardano, lamented.
He announced that the union will hold a partial strike next Tuesday, accompanied by a rally in Montevideo.
In recent months, several foreign companies have closed their plants in Uruguay, as the adhesive manufacturer Fenedur which announced that it will move to Argentina, and the American communications company Verizon ceased operations, leaving behind 265 jobless.
Last January, 1,500 workers were laid off by the Japanese auto parts supplier Yazaki, which closed its two plants in Uruguay and relocated them to Argentina and Paraguay.
In April 2024, Fanacif— owned by the Brazilian company Frasle Mobility— stopped producing brake system components in Uruguay; Gloria Foods, part of the Gloria Group of Peru, canceled its dairy production in Uruguay last year and laid off 43 workers, who learned of the situation through a statement sent via WhatsApp.
The July report from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) on employment in the industrial sector recorded a three percent year-over-year drop according to the Employed Personnel Index (IPO).
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