Following the news of over 800 jobs being cut from the Lansing Grand River assembly plant in Michigan, General Motors also delivered the bad news surrounding the Lordstown, Ohio facility: 1,200 jobs will be shed.
According to The Toledo Blade, dwindling small car sales are responsible for the cuts; the Lordstown plant is responsible for building the 2016 Chevrolet Cruze.
“As the customer shift from cars to crossovers and trucks is projected to continue, GM will suspend the third shift of production at [Lordstown] in the first quarter of 2017,” the company said in a statement.
GM will invest $668 million in its Toledo transmission plant and $211 million at the Lansing Grand River assembly plants, but neither investment will add any new positions.
Comments
I hate to see these cuts but they will be needed with the market slowing.
Better to cut a shift and slow production vs. having a ton of cars sitting around with a big incentive on them.
We will see more of this from all MFG and most plants.
go to one shift and get rid of cell phones instead of working.
Exactly why the majority of Americans voted Donald J. Trump
Hey, Sean, you are awfully quiet now…No more media/ left-wing propaganda telling us how to vote?
The Silent Majority spoke…and kicked out the left-wing, elitist, corrupt, arrogant a-holes. The kicker, the WORKING CLASS AMERICANS, UNION MEMBERS, VOTED Donald Trump in majority numbers. Michigan union members went Trump!
Sean, you aren’t the majority opinion in this country…like I said before and for which many of us were us were ridiculed by arrogant snobs like you…Those who laugh last, laugh the hardest…
The Deplorables won…
This union worker sure as hell didn’t vote trump. Trump is not known for being pro-union.
On the contrary it was the public unions that voted for Clinton.
Now the problem for the private unions were they endorsed Clinton but the members here went more for Trump. The bring the jobs back resounded much in the rust belt as the union members really are not big on their unions anymore. The leader of the AFL CIO was under a log of pressure to deliver votes and it did not happen.
Same for the Teamsters. They had a body that voted away from the union.
This is also why many members are also voting for right to work. The Unions are no where as powerful and the members are tired of being told to do support things they do not believe in.
You are not very observant! Trump lost the popular vote, so the majority of Americans DID NOT vote for him!
These whole auto sector is slowing down, it’s not just gm, you will see and hear more lay offs
The silent majority is a minority because they lost the popular vote. Also Republicans have never shown a desire to help unions. The rust belt was conned only 7 years after the auto bailout despised by Republicans.
Actually the bail out started with Bush. If Romney had gotten elected they would have supported it.
The non support of the bail out was just a stupid political move. They were only fooling themselves and those naive enough to believe it.
This is a glass half full and half empty.
While Hilary got a slight advantage in over all votes most came from concentrated areas like LA, NYC and Chicago.
While they add around 200K votes they do not represent the rest of the country that is more spread out,. Hence this is why we have the electoral collage.
This has been an age old argument for decades but one that points out a majority one small part of the country can not speak for all and there needs to be a balance for all to be represented.
Is it a perfect system no but it works for both sides.
FYI the reason Republicans do not support Unions is that the Union pay millions to support Democrats for favors in office.
That is not to say the Republicans have not gotten their money from the business community. But then the Business community generally gives to both sides to buy favor.
Unions have made many an elected official rich.
This is why Trump has stunned both sides as he is not in it for the money.
Regardless of where they are located, they are Americans! With that being said, his statement was incorrect ,the majority did not vote for Trump.
Regardless od how you want to measure this Trump won, Hilary lost.
That is not going to change.
Regardless of result, fewer Americans voted for him and more against!
But the difference is negligible inn the scheme of things. If it was 60/40 then you would have an argument. Besides trump is actually a democrat. Ask the republicans. The labor union members voted for him because they are fed up with the loss in jobs. The government union members voted democrat because they have not lost their jobs and never will.
The point of the Electoral College is that the USA’s founders didn’t quite trust the voters so they wanted a system to override their will in case the public voted for the “wrong” person.
Yep, this is just one sign that a) small cars (absent a huge increase in gas prices) are increasingly a smaller part of the market and b) that US auto market, as a whole, has reached the top. Hopefully the glide down from here is smooth and not too steep, and eventually reaches a still-high plateau. GM seems well-prepared, but I hope the pain isn’t too great for the workers.
It reminds me of this story:
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/02/us-borrowers-are-paying-more-and-for-longer-on-their-auto-loans.html
– The average price for a car topped $30k and monthly payment $500 — highest ever.
– The average loan length was 68 months
That last one is mind-boggling. A 5-year loan used to be the very top, now 72 or 84 month is frequently in play. So if someone bought a Cruze in 2014, it’s very likely they wouldn’t be buying another one for at least a decade.
As shown best by the Camaro, it’s going to be a dog-eat-dog battle for market share, even with good, new product. GM et al can’t rely on growth in the overall market. That means product development, quality, styling, pricing, marketing, dealer experience etc all will have to be on point — if one gets biffed, there are no extra customers to bail you out.
Rob it is a mix of all you say and a few other things. The key is GM is doing the right thing today in rolling things back.
In years past with many union agreements to pay laid off workers it was cheaper to keep making cars than cut workers and production. That is no longer in play to GM should be able to control inventory better in most cases.
In the past it was cheaper to keep making cars vs paying people to do nothing then pile on big incentives to move the cars.
Makes you wonder what the Presidential election outcome would have been if these job cuts and layoffs were announced a couple of days sooner; but then again, the decision couldn’t have been a surprise to the employees at the factories as they’ve read the reports of slowing sales.
The workers definitely knew. I can’t find it right now, but a commenter on one of the news stories worked at the plant and he said there had been talk about it for the last few weeks. That makes sense, as you don’t plan a multi-hundred million dollar investment without discussing it with a bunch of people.
Plus, as you noted, anyone can read the sales reports. Heck, I saw gas for $1.89/gal today! If I was a small car factory worker, I’d know–while that’s good for the average Joe–that’s not good for small car sales.
Time of Chevy to consider building a Cruze SS as it’s obvious that people are tired of eating healthy and want some junk food as even the LWC 1.6L DOHC-4v 4-cyl turbo making 200 hp would be nice although to earn the SS badge it should get the LTG 2.0L DOHC-4v 4-cyl turbo making 252-270 hp.
How about a small rear wheel drive or all wheel drive sporty car?
GM could export the Cruze premiere from USA to global markets
They build the Cruze all over the world
to many nrw workers playing with there cell phones .gm can sell suvs and trucks they do not need a smaal car product they sold enough for now, o well.better to go to one shift and pay the greedy people straight time and get rid of phones and booze in there locker