GM keeps workforce Holden on

HOLDEN has been thrown a lifeline from Detroit to secure its long-term future — less than a year after closing its car assembly line.

General Motors is poised to almost double Holden’s engineering workforce to more than 300 jobs to develop autonomous, electric, and hydrogen cars of the future.

About 150 new employees will join Holden’s existing engineering workforce of 180 staff specialising in next-generation vehicles to be sold globally.

The former boss of Holden Mark Reuss — who saved the brand from being axed by GM in 2008 — revealed the plans to about 600 staff at the company’s Port Melbourne headquarters yesterday.

Mr Reuss, who is now the head of vehicle development for GM worldwide, is expected to confirm the boost today. Holden declined to comment on the plans, despite the internal announcement to staff.

However, in his address to Holden staff yesterday, Mr Reuss underlined GM’s commitment to Holden in Australia, reportedly telling staff: “GM is investing to win in Australia and New Zealand (with) significant investments that do not happen in every market around the world.”

Adrian Feeney, a former Holden engineer who is now the head of the Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia, said: “Although we’ve lost car manufacturing we still have a lot of automotive engineering talent in Australia.”

Mr Feeney said Holden employed more than 1000 engineers at its manufacturing peak but this new round of jobs was “brilliant news for engineers looking for work, and students wanting to study engineering”.

While car manufacturing has shut down in Australia, the new jobs gives Holden a workforce of about 480 designers and engineers who will develop foreign vehicles, many of which will eventually be sold in Australia. It’s a move mirrored by Ford, which continues to employ about 1500 designers and engineers in Australia after the 2016 closure of its Geelong and Broadmeadows factories.