Workers walk beneath a sign of “Good products, Good ideas” at Toyota’s Miyoshi plant in Miyoshi, near Toyota city, central Japan.

Today, Toyota Motor Corp. announced production will be suspended for at all 12 of its Japan-based facilities for an 11-day period, scheduled to stretch from the end of February into early March. Proving that not even the top dogs are immune to the troubles currently plaguing the global auto industry, Toyota’s decision to temporarily freeze all domestic factories for more than one week is unprecedented in company history.

Although a similar halt was ordered in August of 1993, the moratorium was only effective for one business day, and a previously announced shutdown tentatively planned for January 2009 was only ordered to extend for three days. Ultimately, Toyota decided that January’s 3-day closure was simply inadequate in terms of helping the company combat the riotous industry, and Toyota sources confirm that the future shutdown is intended to cushion the blow of lagging sales numbers. “We are coping with a slump in global sales,” explained Toyota spokesman Hideaki Homma. “Demand in the world auto market is so depressed that every model is falling sharply in sales.”

Source: Detroit Free Press
Image Cred: AP Photo by Shuji Kajiyama