INTERNATIONAL – Subaru said it restarted its sole car factory in Japan on Monday after halting the plant for almost two weeks due to a suspected defect in a power-steering component.
The company said in a statement it did not yet know what impact the production halt would have on its earnings, which are already on track for a third straight annual drop.
The stoppage at the plant, one of Subaru’s only two factories worldwide and accounting for roughly 60 percent of its global production, started from the night shift on Jan. 16.
Subaru on Friday said it did not pay overtime wages over a two-year period to some 3,400 employees who under-reported their hours, a revelation that surfaced in an internal probe following the 2016 suicide of an overworked employee.
The Japanese automaker, known for its Legacy and Forester cars, said the outstanding wages - from mid-2015 to mid-2017 and totaling 776 million yen ($7.08 million) - were paid retroactively to 3,421 workers last March.