American carmaker Ford has decided to slow down the B-Max car production at its plant in Craiova, Romania, to four working days a week in February.

Employees in the Vehicle Operation unit in the Craiova plant will have Fridays off for the whole of February, and will get 80 percent of their monthly salary, according to the union leader at Ford, Ovidiu Cioroianu, quoted by Gazeta de Sud.

The first Friday off will be February 7. The schedule for March was not yet announced.

The recent decision came as a response to the market demand for February. In 2013, Ford temporarily shut down the production in Craiova for 39 working days.

The car maker manufactures 370 B-Max cars a day and around 1,000 engines in its Craiova factory.

End 2013, Ford was estimating that 6,000 cars sold in Romania by the end of the year, including commercial vehicles, down from the 2012 level, when it sold 6,800 units.

editor@romania-insider.com