Opel plant in Vienna-Aspern closes permanently

The Opel plant in Vienna-Aspern, founded in the early 1980s, is set to close permanently on Friday. Carmaker Stellantis announced in the summer of 2023 that it would close the former General Motors plant and stop producing the six-speed manual transmission. A social plan has been implemented for the 300 affected employees and a work center has been set up. After the end of series production, around 50 employees will remain at the plant for dismantling work until the fall.

“We have job offers from around 150 companies at the job center and have already been able to place around half of the employees in new positions,” Stellantis Austria spokesman Christoph Stumvoll said on Wednesday, according to an article published by ORF. The in-house job center will continue to operate after the end of the production chain until all work on the factory site is completed.

“This means that employees still have the opportunity to look at job offers and apply to companies. Stellantis continues to provide all possible support to find a new job. At the same time, there is an opportunity to join WAFF in order to get a job and do further training,” Stummvoll said when asked by APA.

The site is being dismantled.

In the coming months, the machines and everything on site will be dismantled. “Some will be sold, some will be moved to other factories,” says Stumvoll. In June of the previous year, Stellantis announced that it no longer saw a future for the plant, especially as demand for six-speed manual transmissions for combustion engines was falling in the era of electric mobility. “Demand is moving towards automatic transmissions, and also towards electric mobility in very important commercial vehicles, which means that fewer manual transmissions, like the ones made here on site, are needed,” says Stumvoll.

Works council member Christoph Röhm summed up the mood for “Vienna Today” as follows: “Sad, partly angry with the company. Because the work we have done here has not been rewarded as we wanted. Of course we would like to have the continued existence of the business.”

Unclear future for real estate

At its peak, the plant employed more than 2,000 people. In August 2017, Opel became part of the French PSA Group. In January 2021, Peugeot parent PSA and Fiat Chrysler merged to form Stellantis. The plant has shrunk further in recent years. Engines were still being built on site until 2020. At that time, Aspern lost its last major order from General Motors and staff numbers continued to decline. The coronavirus pandemic and problems with the chip shortage have also affected the site.

It is still unclear what will happen to the vacant 600,000 square meter property. In March, Stellantis was reported to have started preliminary discussions with relevant stakeholders in Austria. At the time, there was talk of a possible business park. The owner of the property is the Federal Real Estate Company (BIG).

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