General Motors is offering voluntary buyouts to roughly 18,000 salaried employees in North America who have 12 years or more experience, according to a company-wide email sent out this morning. The buyout applies to any salaried employee who began their employment at GM began Dec. 31, 2006 or sooner.
These measures have been described as “proactive” as auto sales forecasts have begun to regress in both North America and China – GM’s largest and most relevant markets.
While a number of volunteers GM is looking for has not been specified, if the General Motors buyouts do not see enough participation, the company will begin to unceremoniously lay off workers. It’s also unclear how much this round of buyouts will cost.
Eligible employees only have until Nov. 19 to volunteer for a buyout.
A round of General Motors buyouts happened ten years ago, just before the company declared bankruptcy, along with over 10,000 involuntary layoffs, which accounted for almost 15 percent of its total salaried global workforce at the time. In March of 2009, 7,500 employees took the offer. According to its 2017 annual filing, General Motors has a salaried workforce of 77,000 people, down from 90,000 in 2016. A number that was sharply cut after the automaker sold its European operations under Opel to the French PSA Group.
General Motors buyouts were also offered to blue collar workers this year, as nearly 600 Lordstown Assembly employees took the offer back in June. Workers were eligible for up to a $50,000 one-time payment, based on tenure and seniority. The Lordstown Assembly plant is currently operating under one shift and builds the slow-selling Chevrolet Cruze. Additionally, GM offered buyouts to 2,500 salaried workers in South Korea, or roughly 15 percent of the company’s white-collar workforce in the region. The South Korean buyout package included three times a worker’s base salary, money for the college tuition of their children and $9,000 towards the purchase of a new car.
Deeper details of the latest round of General Motors buyouts are not immediately apparent.
Comments
Keep supporting foreigns companies and this is what happen. Sadly.
Put tariffs on steel and this is also what happens. A major factor mentioned in the Q3 earnings call was the huge negative impact to free cash flow due to “material costs”, in other words the tariffs.
This is not a good sign.
This action looks like it is coming from a company with no sense of direction for the future.
Last time it happened was 2008.
2008 was a rough patch, if memory serves…
Is that all General Motors knows how to do? Cut things (like they cut Oldsmobile and Pontiac)? The truly talented executives make what they are given and what they have work. Anybody can cut things or warn of layoffs.
“Is that all General Motors knows how to do? Cut things (like they cut Oldsmobile and Pontiac)?”
Well, what exactly was Olds and Pontiac doing that Buick and Chevrolet (respectively) couldn’t do?
Time was, smart companies actually took some of their profits and REINVESTED them in their respective companies to come out with new product and grow market share.
GM says they are investing “Billions” in electricification and autonomous driving. What do we have to show for it ? A Bolt with South Korean batteries and drive train and a Cadillac option for self driving. Really? And we need “Billions” more! For what? Every Chinese company that can make a bicycle has an electric car or even buses !
In regards to AVs, I think that GM should adopt the approach that FCA, Toyota, Nissan, and BMW et. al are doing- let someone else sink the money in development of AVs and if they take off, buy the componentry from a supplier. I think EVs have far more potential. However, GM has told us nothing about the upcoming product other than there will be 23 of them in the near future.
A 6-time bankrupt is so hopeless at running the economy that was excellently-repaired by Obama given to him on a plate, so hopelessly bankrupt-minded that he creates a trade war over literally nothing and now the economy is tanking. Seen Wall St in the last 2 months? Not 2 days, nope, 2 freakn MONTHS of chaos in the very markets this 6-time bankrupt claimed he could manage.
Trump fan? Where’s the booming business now? He was bankrupt, fools. He always will be. Next time, let a professional like Warren run our economy, please.
MAGA
MAGA – My Attorney Got Arrested
I’m on my 3rd new GM vehicle since late 2016 all new! I bought a 2018 Yukon Denali in March and it’s been in the shop for 86 straight days and then 25 and counting days (not to mention every month that had a week here and there in between. So sad the quality that is coming out of GM! And the lack of backup in products!!!!
This does not surprise me!
Third vehicle in less than 2 years? Stop being a troll and trying to hurt people. If you don’t like yourself or life, then do something about it!
You want all my phone records or case numbers joe? Everytime I got out of one crappy car/loan it was to get into a better …safer one. Didn’t happen. Not a troll. GM is. But thanks for your shallow comment. 😉
Joe, I have plenty you can review also.
Makes sense to me; If GM really is committed, as they claim, to changing their product line to better fit the changing world, then reducing the number of people that worked on the current vehicles and powertrains and hiring the people with specific skills for the future products is logical. With their buyout funds, reduced employees have the option to get training for the new skills needed, and have another go at it; same for hourly workers.
Problem is that many of the jobs that require “new skills” pay less than what these folks are making at GM.
OK time for the translation. The number floating around is 18,000 employees with 12 or more years at GM. Well a TON of the older employees with many years service took buyouts back in 2008 or so. A large number of folks with 12 or more years are maybe in their 40’s or very early 50’s, too young to retire but old enough whee looking for another job not too palatable. Especially in Detroit where all the car companies now cutting. My bet is probably way less than that take the buyout, maybe 4 or 5K tops. That means come January the axe will start swinging and then it won’t just be those with over 12 years but open to the whole company. Sadly as someone who has observed this unfold at several companies if you are a white male over 55 in a middle level role and getting good compensation you are first on the block.
Great post! I have seen a lot of these buyouts go astray. I knew of a man at GM that went through one of many of GM’s “restructurings of the week” during the 80s and 90s. He survived the cut, but his job was reengineered. He spent two weeks waiting in a room to be told what his job would be and where he would be reassigned . Over at Ford, a lot of these “golden handshakes” were grabbed, but then the company realized that there was nobody who had the skill set of the person who took the buyout. Hence, some people were hired back as contractors collecting the pensions, and making a wage about 25% higher than their last wage since the health care was coming out of the retiree fund. Other operations floundered because nobody knew how to do jobs that were vacated.