It’s six years since the last locally made Commodore rolled off the production line in Elizabeth, Adelaide.
Research shows former Holden employees have struggled to find secure work since the shutdown.
One-third of former employees retired, one-third have struggled to find work and the remainder did find a new job in insecure employment.
Thousands of men and women in ancillary and support occupations lost their jobs.
The effects of the closure has been like an atomic bomb going off in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, with under-employment skyrocketing and foodbanks and charities barely managing to cope.
There’s no way to sugar-coat the fallout.
I should know as about 70 workers came to us to rewrite their resumes after leaving Holden.
As a 16-year-old, Stewart Underwood started making cars at Holden — it was the beginning of a lifelong passion.
“It never leaves me and it never will,” Mr Underwood said. “I made best friends for life — my best friend from 1969 is still my best friend today.”
Flinders University academic Dr Gemma Beale followed the journey of more than two-dozen Holden and supply chain workers for three years after the closure.
“In the cohort I followed, there were really high incidences of depression, which ranged from moderate depression, to serious cases of suicidal ideation.”
“They talked about their colleagues (as family) and had heart-warming stories about shared meals and working across cultural and language barriers,” Dr Beale said.