Employees, who have been retained throughout the suspension, will be offered assistance for re-employment, retraining and wellbeing, Toyota has confirmed, adding that they will all be given redundancy payouts. It didn’t confirm how many people were affected.

Volkswagen Group could shift production out of Germany and eastern Europe if a shortage of natural gas persists, the latest sign that the energy crisis unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to shake up Europe’s industrial landscape.