OAN Staff James Meyers
8:23 AM – Friday, November 15, 2024
General Motors laid off almost 1,000 employees on Friday as the automaker attempts to cut costs and realign priorities amid changing market conditions.
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The workers, who are mostly white collar, were told about the decision on Friday morning.
“We need to optimize for speed and excellence,” the statement said. “This includes operating with efficiency, ensuring we have the right team structure and focusing on our top priorities.”
A spokesman for GM confirmed the layoffs but declined to disclose the total amount.
“In order to win in this competitive market, we need to optimize for speed and excellence,” GM spokesperson Kevin Kelly said in an emailed statement. “This includes operating with efficiency, ensuring we have the right team structure, and focusing on our top priorities as a business. As part of this continuous effort, we’ve made a small number of team reductions. We are grateful to those who helped establish a strong foundation that positions GM to lead in the industry moving forward.”
Meanwhile, GM and other automakers have been navigating an uncertain transition to electric vehicles both in the U.S. and across the globe, managing to figure out where to invest capital and how fast the switch will happen.
The company has had to develop and update gas-powered models while investing in EV battery and assembly plants as well as minerals and other parts for the next generation of electric vehicles.
The latest layoffs also come after more than 1,000 salaried employees working in GM’s software and services organization were let go in August.
GM’s global salaried workforce was 76,000 as of the end of last year. That included about 53,000 U.S. salaried employees.
In April, about 5,000 GM white-collar workers at General Motors took the company’s buyout offers, which the automaker said at the time was enough to avoid layoffs.
The company offered buyouts to white-collar workers with at least five years of service, and global executives who have been with the company at least two years.
Furthermore, GM said at the time that it couldn’t completely rule out layoffs in the future, saying that “involuntary separations are not a consideration at this point.”
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