Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the federal government will help find jobs for the 350 Toyota workers made redundant and shore up the car industry overall.
Toyota has axed 350 jobs from its Altona plant in Victoria, citing global economic stresses, a high Australian dollar and a resulting dip in demand.
Ms Gillard, who has a house within walking distance of the Toyota factory, said she was sad to hear about the redundancies.
"For the 350 workers involved this is very, very difficult news and we will be doing everything we can to work with them and support them to get a new opportunity and a new job," the prime minister told reporters in Sydney.
"We are working with the car industry and manufacturing overall to deal with these days of pressure."
Ms Gillard said the car industry employed 46,000 people and supported an additional 200,000 jobs.
She said the coalition's plan to cut $500 million in assistance from the industry threatened jobs.
"It's not good enough in this time of global change and change in our own economy, when we see this pressure from the high Australian dollar, to just say no to jobs in manufacturing," she said.
