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GM Authority

GM To Close Arizona IT Innovation Center, Affecting 940 Jobs

GM has announced that it will close its Arizona IT Innovation Center, affecting 940 employees. The center is set to close before the end of the year. The facility originally opened in 2014.

In a statement provided to GM Authority, GM spokesperson Kevin Kelly addressed the center’s forthcoming closure:

“As part of GM’s continued transformation, and to better align our Innovation Center footprint and IT resources in the US, we have made the decision to cease our IT operation at our Chandler, Arizona, Innovation Center later this year,” Kelly told GM Authority. “Employees working in our software defined vehicle teams will remain in Arizona. Affected employees will have an opportunity to apply for open positions.”

The GM Arizona IT Innovation Center in Arizona.

According to GM’s corporate website, the Arizona IT Innovation center “supports GM’s IT needs including web technologies, end-user applications, dealer and factory systems and vehicle technology.” The facility is located at 2900 W Geronimo Place in Chandler, and spans some 170,000 square feet. According to data as of June 30th, 2023, the facility has a population of 1,029 employees, excluding GM Financial and Cruise.

Those employees affected by the recent job cuts will have an opportunity to apply to other openings at GM, and the company is expected to provide outplacement support. In addition, employees with at least one year with the company will be eligible for a severance package, per a report from Detroit Free Press.

The job cuts are part of new cost-cutting measures to allow GM to focus on growth areas, although specifics were not provided. GM operates three additional IT centers in the U.S., including in Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan.

Earlier this year, GM announced a new voluntary separation program offering certain employees an opportunity to receive pay, health coverage, and other benefits for a limited time in exchange for voluntarily leaving the company. The program was part of GM’s efforts to reduce fixed costs and achieve $2 billion in savings over the next two years. It was reported at roughly 5,000 salaried workers took the offer.

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Jonathan is an automotive journalist based out of Southern California. He loves anything and everything on four wheels.

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Comments

  1. Did they outsourced them?

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    1. To India, China, and Mexico

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      1. I had an issue with Amazon. Took 3 tries to get an Indian that could comprehend English well enough to respond. AI bots would be an improvement of what companies put up as their customer facing support lines

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        1. Had a similar issue when I interviewed there downtown Seattle. Despite having worked in IT with many Indian folks, I could barely understand most of the people I “talked to” that day (and of course they didn’t want anyone that wasn’t “one of them” hired). Really shaped my opinion of Amazon as a place I would never want to work.

          Reply
  2. Another part of Mary’s “Winning with Simplicity” strategy no doubt.

    A prime example of corporate double speak if there ever was one.

    Reply
  3. Are they trying to ruin GM this week? Sounds like a final run away with the money before the UAW timebomb. Cancelling 2024 facelifts now firing people, closing things….

    (still record profits and sales tho)

    Reply
  4. In general, IT isn’t union and gets treated a lot like contractors when technology-driven budgets expand and contract. Lots of other companies have been getting rid of real estate to save money and that’s likely the driver here. Originally I think all these innovation centers were a salary-based cost cutting scheme (geographically cheaper labor) that eventually got proven wrong, much like the huge hidden costs of outsourcing.

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    1. The simple fact is that these jobs are not going away in terms of labor- the work still has to be done. They are covertly being sent to China and India much like our manufacturing jobs were. So much for getting an education in a high-tech field

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      1. I suggested to my kids that they find a career in a field that you have to be physically present for. Otherwise there is a decent chance your job will be going somewhere else.

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    2. GM has a long history of caving to the union and making up the difference from white collar non union jobs. I was a GM fellow in college and for a decade after routinely got called on engineering jobs. The salaries we were always so low I got hung up. Not much has changed apparently

      Reply
  5. Sad to see the folks losing their jobs.

    When these “IT centers of excellence” opened back in 2014ish; being in IT management consulting, it was challenging to see the long term potential of having three (3) duplicative centers spread out across the south (Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta) combined with the legacy technology center in Michigan.

    Almost immediately GM cancelled their in-vehicle systems (MyLink/Intellilink) and outsourced it to Google, instead of capitalizing on the data captured through the vehicles’ usage, an outside party will get it. And the customer gets shafted, as it’s “Their” data yet someone else captures it and still another party monetizes it. Getting rid of CarPlay is simply about eliminating competition’s ability to capture and monetize said data.

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    1. Agree about not understanding why they opened the three centers. It was more a vanity thing to say look how we are located in the fastest growing places. gm is known in industry as really limited in skill and scope. They outsourced to EDS, then tried to outsource to literally every it company in the world as part of 5th generation outsourcing. This was a massive failure. Massive. They tried to insource everything but lost so much 9f the knowledge due to them leaving with outsourcer. They hired a new CIO whose big accomplishment was merging a bunch of data centers. He was not a ahead of the game thinker and was not thought of highly. Their IT has been meh ever since

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  6. Next year the sign might change to Google. This is done many times by big companies and small ones. Outsourcing the work, even in the USA, is less costly and easier to budget. Fix cost for 940 assume salary employees is hugh. On average take the salary figure and add 50% for benefits. Our sourcing a project, the contract will be an hourly rate or fixed cost. When the project is completed, so is the budget.

    Reply

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