Wacker stops short-time work

The Munich-based chemical company took this decision amid growing demand from its solar-sector customers. To serve this demand growth, the company is ramping up its current capacities – which are currently curbed to two-thirds of full utilization – and is, thus, ending short-time work at Wacker Polysilicon. “We sold more polysilicon than expected in January,” said Ewald Schindlbeck, president of Wacker Polysilicon. “Our order intake has increased so much over the last few weeks that plant-utilization levels are currently insufficient to produce the quantities ordered.” Thanks to its modern and flexible technologies, added Schindlbeck, Wacker could align capacities to customer needs at very short notice. As a consequence, the company could react to current and future market trends promptly, regardless of how long today’s surge in demand lasted, he said. Back in early October, 2012, Wacker had begun to curb polysilicon production and had applied for short-time work for about 700 Wacker Polysilicon employees at its Burghausen site.