WENTZVILLE, Mo. — The General Motors plant in Wentzville will close for two weeks, impacting thousands of employees, and it’s all due to a shortage of chips used in vehicles.
A GM spokesman confirmed with 5 On Your Side the closure will last two weeks beginning Monday, March 29 at the assembly plant in Wentzville. The plant employs 3,500 people.
The plant focuses on the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon mid-size trucks, which use semiconductors that are in short supply right now.
“GM continues to leverage every available semiconductor to build and ship our most popular and in-demand products, including full-size trucks and SUVs for our customers,” the company said in an emailed statement.
To not fall behind on production too much while the shortage continues, GM said it plans to “build and hold” certain vehicles.
“GM has also said that when there is a shortage of semiconductors that impacts production, in some cases we intend to build vehicles without certain modules and will complete them as soon as possible. This will help us quickly meet strong customer demand as more semiconductors become available,” the company said in its statement.
The shortage also impacts other assembly plants in the U.S. and internationally.
GM plants impacted by semiconductors:
- CAMI Assembly in Ingersoll, Ontario (down since Feb. 8 through until at least mid-April).
- Fairfax Assembly in Kansas (down since Feb. 8 through until at least mid-April).
- Lansing Grand River Assembly in Michigan (down since March 15 through the week of April 12).
- San Luis Potosi Assembly in Mexico (down since Feb. 8, resuming production April 5).
- Bupyeong 2 Assembly in Korea operating at half capacity since Feb. 8.
- Gravatai in Brazil will take downtime for the months of April and May.
- Wentzville Assembly in Missouri will take downtime the weeks of March 29 and April 5.
In all, about 15,000 GM employees worldwide are impacted by the closures prompted by the semiconductor shortage.