The General Motors Co. said Wednesday that all production shifts at its CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ont. will be forced to take downtime during the week of Feb. 8.

The company is blaming the move on a hold-up in the global semiconductor supply chain.

“Despite our mitigation efforts, the semiconductor shortage will impact GM production in 2021,” the company said in a press release. “We are currently assessing the overall impact, but our focus is to keep producing our most in-demand products – including full-size trucks and SUVs and Corvettes – for our customers.”

GM announced similar production measures at plants located in Kansas and Mexico. It also said that its Bupyeong 2 plant in Korea will operate at 50 per cent capacity.

Autoforecast Solutions, an automotive data consultancy, estimated in a report that GM should see a shortfall of about 10,000 vehicles produced at the four plants affected by Wednesday’s announcement. 

However, Autoforecast President Joseph McCabe added that "as of now, any vehicle volume impact forcing the manufacturer to shut down operations for less than three weeks should be recoverable over the course of 2021 and should not impact total annual production targets."