It’s not just line workers being affected by the economic slow down in the automotive industry anymore. On Tuesday March 24th, white-white collar workers at General Motors Corp were informed that their jobs were being eliminated next week. While this cut is reportedly only 160 positions, mostly engineers and support staff at the Warren Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, it comes as a part of nearly the nearly 3000 US jobs lost throughout the US for the automaker, and 47,000 around the world. Roughly 20% of the total global workforce.

While sad that so many American jobs will be lost in this heavy season of layoffs, corporate restructuring, or whatever the flavor of your euphemism may be, this is something that we may have seen coming. Back in 2007 General Motors posted enormous sales worldwide but maintained an operating budget that placed the company at $38 BILLION loss (3rd quarter 2007). Even a year ago news of trouble at the automaker forced the company in to over 70,000 buyout offers to keep from hemorrhaging cash.

Today the giant has seen cuts in salary, elimination of health care benefits, and suspension of dividends to shareholders, as well as widespread cuts in hourly positions, idling of assembly plants, and huge setbacks due to high energy prices, and the “credit crunch” which affects the GMAC lending arm of the company. During the Bush/Cheney administration General Motors and Chrysler were granted $17.4 billion dollars in government loans to continue operating. Background and Impact: General Motors is the second largest producer of automobiles in the world (second to Toyota in 2008). It had previously been the reigning global leader for the 77 years preceding. Around the world GM employs a quarter of a million people (give or take) across 34 countries. The company encompasses the following brands, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC< GM Daewoo, Holden, Humer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall and Wuling (Thank you Wikipedia). 2008 saw total revenue at $148 Billion dollars with expenses and sales resulting in a net loss of $30 billion dollars. Sources:

1. Freep.com – The Detroit Free Press
2. Wikipedia – General Motors Technical Center
3. MSNBC – GM Reports bigges-ever automotive loss
4. USA Today

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1. Sun Microsystems to layoff workers
2. Caterpillar to pink slip over 2000 more employees – layoff news
3. Surviving a Layoff

See related stories: 2009, general motors, layoff, michigan

This story was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 for the following departments Automotive