German footwear multinational Ara Shoes has announced the redundancy of another 180 people in Seia, in the district of Guarda, northern Portugal, after laying off 130 workers in recent months, adding to the concerns of the town council. The decision to close the sewing section leading to the dismissal of 180 workers by October was communicated to the workers and to Seia town council last week. Mayor Luciano Ribeiro said that Ara Shoes’ intention is to change technology from traditional production to injection moulding and that in this process it intends to retrain up to 60 workers for the injection moulding section. “Even so, if this is achieved, there will be 120 workers who will end up unemployed, which is a cause for concern for us,” he told Lusa.
