It has been a tough time for workers at the Honda car production plant in Swindon which is where the Honda Civic is produced. Ever since September that has been working just part time.

The reason for the short time working, which meant that workers worked only for three half shifts a week, was due the a shortage of parts from Thailand. This was a direct consequence of the serious flooding that happened there in the summer.

Fortunately for the workers, they still received full pay. The deal was that there would be no reduction in wages, but the workers would be required to make up for the lost work hours in the future. Effectively the workers banked future hours which they would need to catch up on.

A spokesperson for Honda has indicated that thee are no firm rules on how long workers have to make up their lost hours, but it will certainly take several months. This is not the first time that Honda has approached these kinds of problems in this way. The first time they did it was following the tsunami.

As well as returning to full time production, Honda will also be increasing the size of its workforce. 500 new jobs will be created and the workforce will increase to 3,500. Production, which is currently 100,000 a month, will be increased to 180,000 and there will be extra shifts introduced.

The new Honda Civic is the ninth generation of this very popular car and there have been some exciting developments. It is said to be the smoothest and quitest Civic to date.

The New Honda Civic