Talleres Armando closes Xove site, relocating 16 staff to Foz

Talleres Armando closes Xove site, relocating 16 staff to Foz

How many businesses actually close because they cannot find staff, and how many do so because a branch is no longer profitable? Talleres Armando closed its Xove workshop on December 30 after nine years in the industrial estate. The family owners cite a lack of staff: the trigger was the departure of one worker at the Foz headquarters and the inability to find a replacement. "I'm throwing in the towel because I am fed up. There is no way to find staff," summarizes one of its managers.

The four Xove workers have moved to the Foz facilities, where 16 people now work. The company, founded 45 years ago, once had three workshops — Foz, Ribadeo (Automóviles Puerta Norte) and Xove — and claims it can no longer maintain three centers "hanging by a thread," dependent on someone taking leave. It retains phones, emails, home car collection and delivery, the MOT inspection process, and six tow trucks providing 24/7 roadside assistance.

That is the business narrative. The problem begins when someone asks why a single temporary leave forces the closure of an entire branch.

Why does a workshop close due to one worker's leave?

This is the sticking point. A business with three branches, sixteen employees at the headquarters, and four staff relocated without issue does not close a center because of one absence: it closes because it has surplus square meters, rent, electricity, and a structure to maintain. Concentrating the workforce in Foz cuts fixed costs and, in turn, leaves Xove customers twenty or twenty-five minutes longer by car each time they leave their vehicle.

The company itself acknowledges the cost: "I suppose we will lose some clients." Some read this phrase as the true reason for the move, rather than a lack of mechanics. The explanation rests literally on a single person on leave. For a decision of this magnitude, that is little scaffolding.

How much does a mechanic earn and how much does he invoice his boss?

Here the matter widens. The metalworkers' collective agreement is often presented as one of the best-paid in the country; the figures circulating in the sector tell a different story. Specialized industrial vehicle mechanics, a scarce and difficult profile, earn between 1,000 and 1,200 euros while the workshop invoices more than 3,000 euros per day, according to calculations within the trade. In an official city service, figures of 1,800 euros are mentioned, with some free Saturdays where they earn two hundred euros in a morning.

The suspicion is reasonable: if the problem were only generational replacement, raising the salary would solve much of the issue. Some point out that 1,300 euros net per month is a good living in that region. What does not hold up is demanding vocation, paying minimum wage, and adding twenty-five kilometers of daily commuting at the worker's expense.

Xove: approx. 3,000 inhabitants and an hour and a half to Lugo

There is a factor that no payslip fully compensates. Xove is a municipality of 3,000 inhabitants in the far north of Galicia. Lugo, the nearest urban reference, is an hour and a half away by road. There is no train, no airport, and the line bus is counted on the fingers. With this starting point, attracting a young mechanic from elsewhere requires a salary effort that a small workshop's profit and loss statement cannot sustain.

The background is demographic. One of Europe's most aging regions does not generate enough local apprentices to cover the retirements of trades requiring years of manual skill and vision.

The 8:00 to 16:30 schedule that does not suit the customer

The company boasts of changing the schedule to facilitate work-life balance: before 9:00 to 13:00 and 15:00 to 19:00, now from 8:00 to 16:30, except for tow trucks, vehicle rentals, and sales. On paper, it sounds modern. In practice, a working customer cannot drop off their car at five thirty in the afternoon, nor claim a repair mid-morning without asking permission.

The figure that dismantles the argument is another: the average driver visits the workshop 1.2 times a year. An annual visit does not fit the employee's shift. Someone has to concede, and in a service business, it is the one paying the bill.

And what if the problem is that no one wants to train anyone?

While discussing a lack of vocations, automotive vocational training continues to add enrollments. The inverse complaint also circulates: workshops that do not take on trainees because "they are not even qualified to change a battery," and at the same time, companies that demand prior experience and pay as if they were apprentices. No one wants to invest the years in training.

Training your own staff, that is a sacrilege. Better wait for someone else to train them, offer them fifty euros more, and when they leave, lament aloud that there is no one left who can endure.