Fiat is the latest car company that will halt production at its Pomigliano plant in Italy for two weeks in September and October because of weak car demand, as Europe's mass-market carmakers struggle to cope with declining car sales.

The automaker will place workers at Pomigliano, where it makes the Panda minicar, on a temporary layoff scheme from September 24 to 28, and from October 1 to 5, a spokesman said on Wednesday. The company has already extended the factory's summer break by two weeks to adjust output to falling demand.

Fiat will shut a plant, its second such move after closing a factory on the island of Sicily in 2011, unless the carmaker can come up with an economically viable plan to use excess capacity to build cars for North America.

While Fiat's Chrysler business in the United States is profitable, Fiat is losing money in Europe like most other mass-market manufacturers.

Sales of Fiat Group vehicles in the European and EFTA countries fell by 16.5% to 456,191 cars in the first six months of this year.