Over 4,000 Americans working for General Motors will soon be looking for employment elsewhere. Half of the former GM employees facing layoffs accepted buyouts, while the other half are receiving job placement assistance from General Motors.
As the company moves toward creating more electric vehicles, the change in the makeup of their employee base must change. The company revealed its restructuring plan in November 2018. The ultimate goal is to eliminate five North American plants and 15,000 jobs.
1,500 people lost their jobs with GM in 2018 due to contract layoffs. President Trump has suggested imposing a 25% tariff on imported cars to help ease the burden on US automakers and possibly save jobs.
GM offered 18,000 employees buyouts during October 2018 on the heels of a warning that President Trump’s enforcement of steel tariffs would eventually lead to fewer jobs in America. GM’s goal is to eliminate 8,000 jobs by the end of February 2019. They’ll start cutting salaried jobs this month. Production at plants in Michigan, Maryland, Ontario, Ohio, and Detroit have stopped. This restructuring plan is GM’s most ambitious in more than a decade.
The company says that because the economy and the job market is strong, they wanted to allow their former employees to find jobs with different companies right now.
