General Motors has announced that it will eliminate 10,000 of the 73,000 jobs in its salaried workforce worldwide and cut the pay of the rest:
General Motors told its white-collar workforce this morning that it will slash about 10,000 management jobs worldwide and make temporary cuts of 10% percent to the pay.
The job reductions will trim GM’s salaried labor force to 63,000 from 73,000 worldwide. In the United States, about 3,400 of GM’ s 29,500 salaried employees will be laid off.
Many of the reductions will take place by May 1. Starting then, the base pay of higher-level executive employees will be lowered by 10 percent, while other salaried employees will face cuts of from 3 percent to 7 percent. In December, GM told Congress that by 2012 the company aimed to reduce its overall workforce — 96,537 salaried and hourly blue-collar workers — by at least 22 percent.
Clearly, this is going to be hard on Detroit and on Michigan, both nearly in a state of collapse. I’m not sure I know what the alternative business is. From a world standpoint we have enormously too much automobile-producing capacity. Just too many cars to be sold. And the developing countries of Asia are adding to that capability every day.
A reduction in size of the automobile industry in the United States may be necessary but it won’t be pleasant.
In my viewpoint, “civility and rational argument” (to quote the president) have returned. I felt that the president explained the why’s and wherefore’s behind the direction he’s trying to move the legislature/the country in. Of course not everyone agrees, but at least he’s making a diligent and cogent effort to be the explainer, which i feel has been really missing in the past. although i had read much of what he said prior, to hear/see it out loud in the public form of a news conference was excellent in my opinion. Of course it was part of his two state barnstorming sales effort. That doesn’t bother me. i thought he did very well, and i look forward to tuning in again to future news conferences.