Recently, two major events have occurred in the automotive manufacturing industry. Volkswagen and General Motors, two major automakers, will close factories and lay off employees.

On September 3, according to Phoenix Auto, the American automaker General Motors, under pressure from local competitors, will permanently close its factory in Ecuador, South America, on Friday (September 6) and will lay off 320 workers at the factory.

However, General Motors' Ecuador dealership will continue to operate to sell cars locally.

As early as April this year, General Motors announced that it would close its factory in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and another factory in neighboring Colombia as part of the company's plan to increase electric vehicle production and stop selling gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. Among them, the Colmotores factory in Colombia stopped production in April this year.

The day before this report, on September 2, multiple media outlets reported that Volkswagen Group issued a statement on Monday stating that it was considering closing one of its automobile manufacturing plants and a components factory in Germany to further reduce expenses.

If implemented, this plan would mark the first time that Volkswagen Group has closed a factory in Germany in its 87-year history.

In addition, Volkswagen is also considering terminating the employment security agreement reached with the union. Through these measures, Volkswagen management hopes to save 10 billion euros in operating costs by 2026. However, union representatives are currently opposed to this, and if the employment security agreement is terminated, it may trigger intense conflicts between Volkswagen and the union.

According to the economic data for the first half of the year released by the world's major economies, the global economy as a whole showed moderate growth and slow recovery in the first half of this year. The latest reports from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank forecast global economic growth of 3.2% and 2.6% for this year, respectively, with both expected to increase by 0.1 percentage points in 2025.

In the current economic environment, the depth of corporate reshuffling will exceed that of the past.