Automaker says 2,700 jobs await staff set to be laid off
General Motors’ plans to DETROIT lay off 14,000 salaried and bluecollar workers might not be as bad as originally projected.
The company said Friday that 2,700 out of the 3,300 U.S. factory jobs slated for elimination will now be saved. Blue-collar workers will still lose jobs at four U.S. plants slated for closure next year, but most will be able to find employment at eight other GM factories where jobs are being added. Some would have to relocate.
GM still plans to lay off about 8,000 white-collar workers and another 2,600 factory workers in Canada, but is working with other employers to identify jobs and targeted training programs for staff.
In November, the company announced plans to end production at the U.S. factories and one in Oshawa, Ont. as part of a major restructuring designed to cut costs and divert resources to development and manufacturing of trucks, SUVs and electric and autonomous vehicles.
Legislators and U.S. President Donald Trump have hammered GM over the moves.
While some of the roughly 3,300 U.S. factory workers will retire, most of the rest will be offered one of 2,700 jobs the company plans to add at factories where production will increase, GM announced on Friday. Some would have to uproot and move to other cities for jobs.
“Our focus remains on providing interested employees options to transition including job opportunities at other GM plants,” CEO Mary Barra said in a statement of the factory workers.
That still leaves the majority of the 14,000 cuts hitting whitecollar workers. A small number of them will be able to transfer to other openings, and those who can’t will get help in finding work elsewhere, the company said.
Since the announcement, GM has faced withering criticism from Trump, legislators from the affected states and the United Auto Workers union, largely over the plant closure plans. Trump has focused on a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that’s slated to stop making compact cars on March 1. He has promised to return factory jobs to the U.S. and Ohio, a key state in his 2020 re-election campaign.
GM is cutting six car models as buyers have dramatically shifted their preferences to SUVs and trucks, which will account for about 70 per cent of new-vehicle sales this year. Just six years ago, that number was 51 per cent, and now GM is left with too many factories making cars.
The automaker’s attempt to close the factories still has to be negotiated with the United Auto Workers union, which has promised to fight back. The other factories that could go are assembly plants in Detroit and Oshawa, Ont., and transmission plants in Warren, Michigan, and near Baltimore.
Trump continued to blast GM and Barra in an interview with Fox News on Thursday. “I don’t like what she did,” Trump said.
The announcement that nearly all the blue-collar workers may get other GM jobs could counter some of the attacks, but it’s unlikely to stop them completely since GM still intends to halt production at the factories.