It’s unhappy information for the 78-year previous Goodyear manufacturing unit in South Africa. Final week it was introduced that the big multinational can be shut its Kariega plant in Nelson Mandela Bay. With out Goodyear, there’ll solely be three worldwide firms with a manufacturing unit in South Africa: Continental, Sumitomo (Dunlop) and Bridgestone.

The buying and selling setting is changing into more and more troublesome for worldwide tyre firms with manufacturing in South Africa. That is primarily resulting from excessive vitality prices and low cost, sub-par Chinese language imports being dumped within the nation. Again in 2020, Bridgestone got here near shutting its Brits manufacturing unit in South Africa. Likewise, Sumitomo was pressured into restructuring at its Ladysmith plant in KwaZulu-Natal earlier this yr, in February.

GOODYEAR FACTORY IN SOUTH AFRICA

However, the native tyre producers that stay are all a part of bigger international organisations that feed the remainder of Africa. As such, they make use of round 5 000 staff collectively, and are accountable for greater than 7-million tyres yearly, says the South African Tyre Manufacturing Convention (SATMCC).

Sadly, the Goodyear manufacturing unit in South Africa has been in operation since 1947. It employs within the area of 900 staff. The agency introduced the closure in a normal assertion final week, on Thursday 5 June 2025. It mentioned Goodyear South Africa will rework to a ‘go-to-market’ to optimise its footprint and portfolio, experiences TopAuto.

RESTRUCTURING PROCESS

“As a part of that transformation, Goodyear South Africa is launching a restructuring course of in accordance with the provisions of the Labour Relations Act. To handle the closure of the manufacturing unit in South Africa, it is going to realign gross sales, administration and normal administration features. As such, Goodyear South Africa will proceed to take care of gross sales, distribution and retail presence in South Africa by Hello-Q,” confirms the assertion.

Goodyear says closing the manufacturing unit in South Africa is by no means a mirrored image of the efforts and years of dedication. Subsequently, it says it’s dedicated to appearing pretty and offering affected staff with applicable assist. As such, the reorganisation course of can be overseen by the Fee for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA). There are additionally job loss mitigation initiatives in place with the Nelson Mandela Bay Enterprise Chamber to help those that have been made redundant.

Consultants says unreliable electrical energy provide, above-inflation price will increase and low cost Chinese language imports have all contributed to robust buying and selling situations for native tyre producers during the last 5 years. It’s a disgrace to see hard-working South Africans shedding jobs …

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