The giant Mirafiori factory complex located in the Fiat's hometown Turin will down tools for two weeks; cars built at this plant include the new Alfa MiTo coupé and the Fiat Grande Punto.

Fiat's workers in factories across Italy have downed tools this week for an extended Christmas period close down caused by rapidly falling consumer demand that will see the carmaker's factories remaining idle for almost a month. Fiat say that around 48,000 of its 80,000 staff will be affected while the unions put the figure around 59,000; the plants will reopen on January 10th.

However the knock on effect of the plant stoppages will cut deeply into the Fiat Group's many supplier companies leveraging the figure further. "For every person employed by Fiat, there are three or four people employed by sub-contractors, which brings the total amount to something between 150,000 and 200,000 people," Giorgio Airaudo, the head of the biggest union within Fiat, told the AFP news agency yesterday.

'Meanwhile Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne is attempting to obtain financial assistance from the Italian government. However Italy's Foreign Minister, Frano Frattini, has responded in lukewarm fashion to the idea, suggesting that Italy would only participate in an EU brokered deal. "It would be wrong to help one sector over another based on the individual needs of the member states," he told the press on the sidelines of a regional conference yesterday. "However, if Europe decides on a general framework to help certain for sectors, including the automobile industry, we would take this into consideration," he continued, adding, "but until this comes happens it would be very dangerous to give aid to a sector on a member by member basis. It is a method I have never approved of." Carmakers across the world are going cap in hand to their governments to ask for financial assistance, and following the lead of the American 'big three' carmakers - General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - who have been pleading with the US Congress for funding to keep them in operation.

Plants to be affected by the Fiat shutdown include the giant Mirafiori complex in the firm's hometown Turin which will down tools for two weeks; cars built at this plant include the new Alfa MiTo coupé and the Fiat Grande Punto. Other factories to shut temporarily will include Alfa Romeo's key plant, Pomigliano d'Arco, near Naples which assembles the Alfa 147, 159, 159 Sportwagon and GT Coupé, which will fall silent for a month, and the Termini Imerese factory on Sicily, which builds the B-segment Lancia Ypsilon; it will shut for three weeks. During the closures Fiat will tap into the Italian government-backed 'cassa integrazione' facility which pays the bulk of worker's basic wages during any layoff period.