Bader facility in Uruguay closes for two months
22/09/2010
The facility, which Bader opened in 1999 and expanded in 2001, 2002 and 2007, kept production going after other Uruguayan tanneries such as Kindale closed their doors in August. It makes finished leather from wet blue and runs a cutting plant to cut the finished leather into upholstery kits for automotive companies.
High raw material prices are reported to be the main reason why the sector is struggling in Uruguay at the moment.
Bader's 350 workers there will receive unemployment benefit for the next two months, which means 50% of their usual salaries, with an extra 10% for married workers. Members of the management team there have told local media that recent improvement in demand for automotive leather among European car brands has not yet filtered along the supply chain to Uruguay.
Rather than looking to more established economies in Europe and North America that have been badly hit by the economic downturn of the last two years, a special think-tank set up by the Uruguayan government to help the manufacturing sector there has been suggesting that production companies, including tanners, would do better to focus on the Brazilian market.
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