Lisbon subway employees staged a 24-hour strike on Friday to reject the government's decision to sell off the state-owned company.

The concession has sparked numerous strikes since the plan was announced, with the strike on Friday being the eighth held by subway employees this year.

The subway will be closed until Saturday morning and the strike comes after the government announced that Spain's second largest bus company Avanza won a bid for Lisbon subway and bus carrier Carris last Friday.

The concessions are part of Portugal's privatization plan launched under its 78 billion euro (about 87 billion U.S. dollars) bailout program, which the country signed with the troika of international lenders, namely the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, in 2011.