LONDON (AP) -- Workers at Honda's U.K. production plant are set to return to work Monday after a four-month layoff and a pay cut.
The company had suspended production from February through May because of slow sales.
Workers have voted to cut their pay by 3 percent for the next 10 months, and managers have taken a 5 percent cut as part of the deal.
The work force at Honda's plant in Swindon, in southern England, has been reduced to 3,400 after some 1,300 workers accepted the company's offer of voluntary severances.
Workers at Vauxhall's plant at Ellesmere Port also returned to work Monday, ending their one-week layoff. Their future is clouded by uncertainties surrounding the proposed takeover over General Motors Corp.' operations in Europe.
Honda's production target in the U.K. this year is 113,000 cars, barely more than half of its previous goal of 228,000 vehicles.
Manufacturers have been hit particularly hard by the global recession. Britain's Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders says that U.K. production is running about half of last year's level.
British dealers are hoping for a sales boost from a government program launched in May offering 2,000 pounds ($3,000) incentives to people who trade in a car more than 10 years old. Similar programs have boosted sales elsewhere in Europe.