Portugal is too expensive; it is better to manufacture in India. German group Sioux says goodbye to its Portuguese plant by closing the Lousada site, which employs 150 people. Production will be transferred to India. The site was for long dealing with the lack of orders: 40 jobs were cut last year and, during the last few months, employees were left home for three weeks. Now, according to what reported by Portuguese website verdadeiroolhar, workers have found notice on the plant’s doors that the closing down is imminent. Employees have taken advice from union representatives and showed up to work, remained outside the gates, and waited for the company to present to them a written declaration stating why they no longer had jobs. According to Sioux, in Portugal during the last season only 50,000 pairs of shoes were manufactured, against the 600,000 that are usually produced every year. According to German portal shoe.biz the volume lost in Portugal has been picked up by other sites that partner with Sioux, mainly in southern India where the German group has had 2 partners since the seventies. “Closing down the plant in Portugal is a big hit for us and it hurts, but we had no other choice”, stated the group’s ceo Lewin Berner. “Structural change and specifically digitalization in the sector force business to renew their cost structure”.
Backing out of Portugal: it’s too expensive, says German Sioux, “we will go to India to manufacture (all) footwear”
