SAIC-GM Reportedly Seeking To Cut Jobs This Year

China’s SAIC Motors – which opreates joint ventures with major automakers like General Motors and Volkswagen – is seeking to cut thousands of jobs over the course of the 2024 calendar year, with SAIC-GM taking a notable hit.

According to a report from Reuters, the Chinese-owned automaker is looking to cut 30 percent of the workforce at SAIC-GM, 10 percent of workers at SAIC-VW, and more than 50 percent of employees at its Rising Auto EV subsidiary. Of course, this large-scale head count reduction is not commonplace for state-owned Chinese firms, and can likely be attributed to a vehicle price war amid the country’s stumbling economy.

It’s worth noting that these job cuts may also be indicative of the mass-adoption of electric vehicles in China, an area where SAIC has lost ground to U.S.-based Tesla and Chinese automaker BYD.

Interestingly, a GM spokesperson in China claimed that the quoted 30 percent reduction in workforce is inaccurate, but declined to elaborate.

While the layoffs are reportedly targeted for the current 2024 calendar year, the workforce reduction won’t happen all at once. In fact, a large portion of the job cuts will be performed through the implementation of stricter performance standards, as well as offering payouts to lower-rated employees who elect to resign.

Notably, SAIC Motors has stated that the claimed downsizing is not true, but failed to comment any further.

This comes at an interesting time for General Motors – and its SAIC-GM joint venture – as the Detroit-based automaker saw sales decline across all five of its Chinese-market brands, which includes SAIC-GM’s Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac in addition SAIC-GM-Wuling’s Baojun and Wuling. While 2023 sales topped out at 2,098,980 units, this was actually a nine-percent drop from 2022 levels. In regard to SAIC-GM itself, sales decreased 16.1 percent to 870,080 units.

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As a typical Florida Man, Trey is a certified GM nutjob who's obsessed with anything and everything Corvette-related.

Trey Hawkins

As a typical Florida Man, Trey is a certified GM nutjob who's obsessed with anything and everything Corvette-related.

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