GM may cut thousands of salaried workers-report (5,000 jobs)

Source: Reuters

CHICAGO, Feb 7 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp. (GM.N) is developing a plan to fire up to 5,000 salaried employees as it tries to cut costs by a March 31 deadline to keep $13.4 billion in U.S. government aid, according to a Bloomberg report.

The total could match the number of salaried positions GM slashed in 2008, the report said, citing people familiar with the plan. The company will include the plan in a Feb. 17 progress report to the U.S. government.

A spokesman for GM was not immediately available to comment on the report.

GM, which saw its sales drop 49 percent in January, told policymakers in December that it faced possible near-term collapse without government aid. The company has received $9.4 billion in emergency funding as part of a rescue plan the U.S. government approved in December.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0748496320090207

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hmmm.... what's good for General Motors is good for the US ...

somehow they turned that one upside down, didn't they?

when you lay off all the engineers?

it weren't for unions this would be hourly people. My ex-brother in law was an engineer years ago. His sole job was to carry water samples from the river to the lab, twice a day. A walk of about 1/2 mile. So I see no great loss there.

being stuck with jobs like that! Can you imagine being stuck designing a heated cup holder while engineers at other companies are designing fuel cells?

The saddest thing: once an engineer works for a company say, as round widget designer, that engineer is tagged as a round widget designer forevermore and can't get an interview with a company that makes square widgets.

Most likely it will affect those in many of the assembly plants.

I guess the Saturday news dump was the best time to release this.

were very top-heavy in management.


My Dad is a Ford white-collar retiree.

He said that when he started working for Ford back in 1957, there would be two guys standing around doing next to nothing, and ten guys working hard.

When he retired twenty years ago, he said there would be ten guys standing around, and two guys actually working.

They forgot that the fewer production workers the fewer of them would be needed.

There was an article years ago after 9/11 discussing how GM lead this country out of recession after that terrible event with their 0% financing. Ford and the other autos followed suit.

I've tried to find the article and even think I posted it in a discussion forum somewhere but I'll be damned if I can find it.

If anyone thinks it will be the 'banks' that will be this economies 'savior', I'm afraid they are sadly mistake.

The government gave them just enough money to survive for a couple months while they prepared for a Chapter 11 reorganization. The Republicans like this idea a whole lot because to would break the companies free of their pension commitments. I deal a lot with insiders at these companies and they are both saying the same thing -- that this is the plan. We'll see soon enough if that is true.

it appears more likely GM will just shut down one or two of their brands... maybe Buick and/or Saturn. I thought they made a mistake when they shut down Oldsmobile. They were only a few years removed from Cutlass being the best selling car in America.

It may be just the talk of disgruntled low-level employees, but the ones I work with seem pretty confident that a Chapter 11 is coming very soon. Not only would this give GM a way to disown their retiree obligations, being under a bankruptcy court might give them the muscle they need to thin out the dealership ranks by about 70%, which is definitely needed. That whole business model is pretty goofy. Even in great times, there are lots of dealerships that sell fewer than 5 cars a day. People are quick to point to the retired workers as the problem, but the extreme inefficiency of the dealership model is at least as big a problem.