Following the decision to withdraw its Chevrolet brand from Europe, General Motors is planning to trim its South Korean workforce.
According to GM Korea CEO Sergio Rocha, the automaker will launch a “voluntary retirement” program open to its 6,000 salaried workers by March, representing GM’s fourth round of job cuts since 2009. The General, however, is not looking to slash production positions, and is instead focused on shedding research and design staff.
The layoffs will be conducted in the form of a voluntary retirement program, with 6,000 salaried employees eligible to apply for the scheme. Of the 6,000 salaried workers, roughly 2,000 are research and design staff.
“This is part of our ongoing efforts to enhance operating efficiency,” said GM spokesperson Park Hae-ho. He did not disclose a target for the job reductions.
Earlier this month, GM shocked many with an announcement to drop the Chevrolet brand from the European market by the end of 2015. The automaker will instead focus on its twin Opel and Vauxhall marques to return to profitability in the region. Discontinuing Chevy in Europe is expected to result in a 20 percent production drop in South Korea by 2015.
Speaking on the basis of anonymity, a GM Korea research and design employee told Reuters that the center is working to complete the development of the next-gen Spark in March of 2014 ahead of a 2015 launch of the city car. After that, the center would have no more projects on which to work on.
Comments
Great news. I don’t care for their designs.
So, you “don’t care for” the following:
Spark
Sonic/new Aveo
Cruze
Captiva 7
In my opinion, these are the best-looking vehicles in their segments, and some of the best-selling Chevrolet nameplates worldwide.
끝났네..렁필리ㅂㅂ2
My knowledge of the Korean language is by far too weak to grasp the meaning of my predecessors contribution… if someone could please provide a translation into some European language, please?
Well google translate says the previous gentleman’s comment is:
“Philip Chung’s over … 2” which makes no sense so I’m gonna wait for someone else to translate. As for this news, I don’t know what to say. I mean my question is: what does this mean for the future of GM on a global scale? Is it a good or bad decision for GM to get rid of R&D in S.Korea?
Might mean Mary wants R and D to be more efficient and centralized. Also might mean Australia will keep R and D as a consultation surprise. Could also indicate china is where the design efforts will contrite in Asia.
Korea has become a auto design hotspot, so much so that Kia makes a point of mentioning Korean roots.
Designs like Encore and Verano have been critical and sales hits.
Korean high labor costs are the cause. I doubt this work with move to a Chinese JV.
The “auto design hotspot” of Kia’s owner, Hyundai, is in Rüsselsheim, Germany, the same city in the Rhein-Main-area where Opel headquarters and development and design center is located. This is at least the Hyundai design center for their European cars. The gobal design director of Kia is Peter Schreyer, formerly chief designer of the Volkswagen group.
While the Opel Astra sedan, aka Buick Verano, is a relatively good looking car, it is just a body variation of the original Astra. And I believe that the sedan had been designed in China, where it came first to market, and not in Korea.
Best looking is segment? Are you kidding me?
The grill on all 3 are awful, especially the blunt front end of the sonic.
Peter Schyler had been key in the Kia design transfermation. They do work in Germany, tweeking cars for market, but Korea does a majority of work. Interestly, I believe it was Forbes, did an article speaking to the Korean creative genius from autos to telephones. How the rush to prosperity has influenced the nation’s creativity.
GM can survive without Korea, but some great work has been done there. interestingly, it seems like we’re all praise every design center except the work that is done here in Warren, Michigan
In reply to Alex Luft on his list of “best-looking” cars I can only say that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. In my eyes the Aveo (sedan) is outright ugly, and the others are at best so-so.
The only good looking Cruzes are the hatchback and the station wagon, but those are, I believe, designed by the Holden design center in Melbourne, not by GM Korea.
Agreed, and aren’t Verano and Encore on that list, too? The Korean operation has been vital to GMs global success. It has accomplished, in coordination with GM Europe, some of the best work in the industry.
I hope that these staff reductions are not part of a Chinese or NA pivot. Things are stalker as is.
On which list do you think to place Verano and Encore (Buick)?
Can’t say that I agree about the hatch, but the Cruze Wagon is in my view very good looking, but we don’t get it here. The current sedan is just average looking.
As for the Sonic/Spark/Encore/…, aesthetically, the Cruze Wagon is to the Cruze Hatch as the Encore is to the Sonic. Only the larger SUV is nicely proportioned. The others appear chopped off, as if to be made for parking in European cities.
And the Koreans botched the interior design for anyone the size of the average North American male. These cars could have been even more successful.
The guy who designed the Camaro was from Korea. Talent lies In the hand and mind of the person holding the pen not the origin country of their birth.
lot of how well a car works in a market is based on what markets it was originally designed for. The Aveo was not designed with America or Germany in mind hence it lacking in desire to many. Now given the task they can design a car that can do very well in any market anywhere in the world if it is designed for the market it is intended.
The lacrosse was designed in China if I recall correctly but also with the American market in mind. Same for the Korean based Cruze as it was also intended here also.
Hyundai is designed there but they hired a ex GM Buick guy to guide them for the needs of the market. As you can see it has changed their fortunes.
@Scott: “Talent lies In the hand and mind of the person holding the pen not the origin country of their birth.” — sure, but this applies also to whole design teams, not just individuals.
As to the Lacrosse — I heard an Opel engineer saying that most of the cars based on the Epsilon II platform had been developed and designed together with this platform in the Rüsselsheim ITEZ, not only the SWB Insignia/Regal, but also the LWB ones, the still-born 2010 Saab 9-5 and the LaCrosse. The latter als chauffeur car for China and as roomier car for North America. He did not mention the Malibu and Impala.
It would seem that there is a great deal of confusion surrounding the development of GM’s Epsilon-based vehicles, with some saying that engineering was done by Opel, others suggesting involvement by GM’s Chinese operations as well as those in the U.S. I’m sure a combination containing some of those is true.
But let’s assume that development was done at the Rüsselsheim ITEZ as Observer7 states. I have a feeling that the work is an item of national or perhaps even Opel brand-related pride for the center — serving as a statement that goes something like this: “hey GM, look at the engineering we can do here in Germany”. But while the quality of the engineering work is undeniable, it’s important to remember what made it all happen for Opel, which has posted a loss every year throughout this century. The only reason the center had the privilege of doing the Epsilon work in the first place is due to GM’s financial backing and continued investments into Opel. Without GM’s financial support, there would be no “Rüsselsheim ITEZ”, at least not the way we know it today… and Epsilon would have been developed elsewhere.
Sangyup Lee, the camaro designer was Korean born, but the car was not designed by GM Korea. Lee left for VW and is now with Bentley. Wish GM could get him back.
The times they are a-changing, as the song goes.
At the time of the development of the versions II of small, compact, and midsize platforms, the generally agreed upon information was that the Rüsselsheim ITEZ would be responsible for the compact and midsize platforms (Delta and Epsilon), and Incheon (GM Daewoo) for the small car platform(s) – Gamma II.
It might well be that the possibilities for collaboration over the Net have improved since then, it remains true that physical presence remains irreplaceable, also for meetings to discuss a development project. This pushes for concentrating the project to a given location, where the participants can get together to share their information and thoughts without having to spend too much time in travel.
On the other hand, the increasing modularity of “platforms” makes it easier to assign the responsability for single modules to different teams or individuals in different places, once the interfaces are clearly defined.
As to the work of the ITEZ for the Lacrosse and 2010 Saab 9-5, I think there were answers from on Opel engineer in a Youtube video which I linked to some time ago, but can’t find at the moment…
This is all about money GM wanted to keep production there along with r and d but labor cost is to much they asked the government to reduce the amount of cost and they couldn’t so they started to reduce operations there