Chrysler shuts down manufacturing for a month

This is from MSNBC News:

DETROIT - Chrysler LLC said Wednesday that it is closing all 30 of its manufacturing plants for a month starting Friday as it seeks to counter the most severe downturn in U.S. auto sales in more than two decades.

By extending the traditional two-week holiday shutdown period, the struggling Auburn Hills, Mich.-based automaker can adjust production to slowing demand and conserve cash.

In a statement Wednesday, Chrysler said tighter credit markets are keeping would-be buyers away from its showrooms. The company said its dealers are unable to close sales for buyers due to a lack of financing, and estimate that 20 to 25 percent of their volume has been lost due to the credit situation. Sales in November slid 47.1 percent.

Chrysler and larger rival General Motors Corp. have warned they could run out of cash within weeks without financial aid from Washington. Chrysler has said its cash will drop to $2.5 billion by Dec. 31, the minimum needed to meet payroll, pay suppliers and run the company. It would have trouble paying bills after the first of the year.

Operations will be idled at the end of the shift on Friday, Dec. 19th shift. the earliest plants will reopen is Jan. 19, 2009. A few plants will reopen on Jan. 26.

Chrysler is seeking $7 billion in government loans as it tries to survive the recession and the worst U.S. auto sales slump in 26 years. For the first 11 months of this year, Chrysler sales are down 27.7 percent to 1.4 million vehicles from 1.9 million for the same period last year.

With the U.S. sales slump expected to continue into January, traditionally one of the slowest sales months of the year, the company has little revenue coming in and must pay suppliers $7 billion every 45 days.

Now I pretty much expected companies to reduce their operations to a skeleton crew for the Christmas holidays, however, even I'm surprised by Chrysler's move to completely shut down its operations for a month. It is actually cheaper for Chrysler to stop producing cars for a month, and not have to pay their suppliers $7 billion for that month, than to run any type of skeleton operations when they can't sell cars due to the souring economy and the frozen credit market. Chrysler can also stave off any bankruptcy decision until after Barack Obama is inaugurated into the White House, and a new Congress can take up an auto loan bailout bill.