General Motors is committed to remaining the largest private sector employer in the Oshawa, Ontario region, according to GM Canada’s vice president of corporate affairs, Dave Paterson.
Speaking at the recent Ontario Auto Mayors summit in Oshawa, which saw mayors from several Ontario towns converge to discuss the future of the province’s auto sector, Patterson said that GM will remain Oshawa’s largest employer and will also maintain a presence in the region for the next century.
“General Motors will not only continue to be the largest private sector employer in Oshawa, we’ll be here for another 100 years — but we will only achieve that if we continue to stay ahead of the trends and the changes and the technology and the industry,” he said.
GM’s Markham software center
The meeting, held last week, included Ontario mayors from automotive industry-reliant towns such as Oshawa, Windsor, and Ingersoll. They discussed the various problems Ontario’s auto manufacturing industry is facing and potential policies they can enact that will help strengthen the industry going forward.
“They’ve painted an exciting picture of a new world of mobility, and all of us – as mayors, not just ‘auto mayors’ – are going to have some work ahead of us to get ready for it,” Oakville, Ontario mayor Rob Burton said in an interview following the summit.
GM announced late last year that it would be closing down the longstanding Oshawa Assembly plant, with around 2,500 people expected to lose their jobs. GM Canada will continue to operate its headquarters, and research and development arm in Oshawa and plans to expand its Canadian software engineering workforce going forward.
“GM’s investment in Canada has also created Canada’s largest automotive software engineering workforce as it continues to add jobs in next-generation automotive engineering, software and testing work in Oshawa, Markham, Kapuskasing and soon in Toronto,” the automaker wrote in a statement on its Oshawa-dedicated website, supportingoshawaworkers.ca.
The Oshawa plant is expected to be fully shuttered by this December.
Source: Durham Region
Comments
More GM PR BS. These cubicle farm jobs can be done anywhere and outsourced overnight. In moving these jobs overseas they will use the same excuse that they did when moving manufacturing jobs overseas. Furthermore, a cubicle farm does not bring in nearly as much tax revenue as a plant so the region will still suffer.
“Cubicle farm” jobs as you call them such as software and research and development bring in far more tax revenue because they’re far higher paying. Higher earning employees spend more (sales tax) and pay more (income tax) than assembly workers. It’s easy to outsource nearly any worker whether manufacturing or knowledge work, but GM cares more about knowledge workers (as do pretty much all employers) because they do higher level (thus more important) work than a manufacturing worker. GM makes the assembly of a car so simple a monkey could do it. I’m not exaggerating about that either. Those $70 per hour UAW/CAW jobs won’t be around for much longer as robots are taking the jobs.
The liberal government, Trudeau and Unifor killed the production plant.
GM has better and easier places to produce vehicles outside a plant with a hostel socialistic union.
The public is not buying the vehicles being made there!!!!!!!!!!!!
RAM is outselling GM, so not buying their trucks either. Hybrids and even the Bolt full electric is dead. This is a dying company.
Lol, a dying company? Most dying companies aren’t making billions of dollars per year. RAM is not outselling GM, it was outselling Chevy. Add GMC and they’re number 1, even ahead of Ford. Ultium is replacing the Bolt and will be profitable (Bolt is breaking even, now after 4 years).
GM gave them indications long ago they were considering closing the plant. This was reinforced by giving them models that had no future models planned when the moved the Camaro.
The union here has been a big issue and the were given little with intent to leave. Now the CAW has been better to work with and the hey were rewarded with keeping the Nox and Terrain.
Terrain was sent to Mexico
It never fails to amaze me, that as soon as a negative article appears about losing jobs in Canada, or the US for that matter, that the current party in power gets the blame. Never mind the fact that the automobile of today will shortly be powered by electricity and not gasoline or diesel. Could GM – or Ford, or Chrysler, or any other manufacturer for that matter – build a profitable electric car in Canada or the US? I really don’t know the answer, as the electric car business is still in its’ infancy. I will, however, note that the Chinese are already successfully building and selling large amounts of EV’s. The north American manufacturers are facing the problem of an ever increasing rise in the cost of doing business, largely due to the cost of labour. Yes, I’m sure the union types will say it’s not them that is the cause of higher labour costs, and to a degree they are actually right. We have a higher standard of living – generally speaking – that the average Chinese citizen, and therein lies the trouble. We cannot be expected to produce a comparable vehicle in North America at the same cost as the Asian market does. Unfortunately, it is a fact of life. If you want cars to be produced here, then expect the manufacturers to have to charge more. Now we run into the problem of the market controlling the price by virtue of the fact that all north Americans want to pay less. Where does that leave the car manufacturer? Think about it….either we must be willing to pay more in order for the manufacturers to make a profit – which they must do in order to stray in business – or they go elsewhere to a place that is more conducive for them to do so. It’s always a no win situation for the government of the day. So please stop the childish whining about Justin Trudeau. Surely you can comprehend that he is our prime minister, but that does not mean that he is the one sitting down at the bargaining table and trying to make deals with the various unions in Canada. Perhaps the visitors here should be trying to think of a solution rather than just wildly throwing the blame on to our politicians. Let’s face it, I wouldn’t want any of them running GM or Ford or Chrysler and so on. Look at the latest Conservative disgusting display in our parliament just a few days ago. Talk about a bunch of spoiled kids!
But the real question is “Will GM even be around in 10, 20 or even 30 years?”. That should be the question for a company which has been shrinking for the last 40 years, gone bankrupt and is now considered to be a small player with a market cap. in the 50B mark and shrinking. This is in the same range as the start-up Tesla which has far more significant growth.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/images/GM-RIP.jpg
Many, many people have learned that GM’s word can’t be trusted. Blowing smoke up our collective behinds is what GM does, it factors large in their playbook.
You are right. When this cubicle farm is outsourced to a second and third world country, GM will come up with something like “GM supports dozens of jobs in the Oshawa area in the dealers that sell and service our vehicles”
So how many you who bad mouth GM and everything they do typed you comments on a device made in China or Korea while driving your trucks because you wouldn’t be caught dead in a small sedan.
Unfortunately, most if not all electronic devices are made in China now.