‘We were very fortunate to weather the storm,’ Toyota Australia CEO says
After ending 2020 with record sales, Toyota Australia has announced it is returning more than $18m to the federal government received through the JobKeeper wage programme.
JobKeeper payments are given to cash-strapped businesses struggling to keep their workers employed during the coronavirus crisis. The programme provides workers with a subsidy of up to $1,000 per fortnight until 28 March. However, employers will have to prove their revenue declined by a certain percentage to qualify for government aid.
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In early 2020, Toyota witnessed year-on-year sales plummet by more than 30% as consumers held onto their cash and job cuts swept across industries. At the time, the company was still doing better than most, as other car manufacturers saw sales decline by about 50%.
“Like most businesses, Toyota faced an extremely uncertain future when the COVID-19 health crisis developed into an economic crisis that even led to dealerships closing for extended periods in Victoria and Tasmania,” Toyota Australia President and CEO Matthew Callachor said.
Options for travel
Australia, however, has been relatively successful at keeping its COVID-19 case count low amid the months-long lockdown in certain regions and the continuing ban on most international flights.
The restrictions have led consumers to review their options for travel, prompting many to purchase a car and opt for a holiday in nearby destinations – instead of flying overseas.
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Toyota saw this as an opportunity and worked to increase its market share to 22.3%, its largest since 2008. Q4 sales soared nearly 30% while overall sales for 2020 reached almost 205,000 units.
“Some of our research showed that people were saying ‘I’ve still got a job, I’ve still got an income, I’m going to go and give myself a treat,’ so to speak,” Callachor said.
With sales rebounding, Toyota will soon return millions in wage subsidy to the government.
“In the end, we were very fortunate to weather the storm better than most, so our management and board decided that returning JobKeeper payments was the right thing to do as a responsible corporate citizen,” Callachor said.
Speaking to News Corp, the CEO said: “Our situation now, on the basis of the last quarter and looking forward into next year, has normalised so we’ve been talking to the ATO and we’re actually going to hand that money back.”
Toyota Australia is now waiting for the global team in Japan to green light the repayment.
