The flood of layoffs in the automotive sector continues. American car manufacturer General engines announced this Friday that it would lay off nearly a thousand employees as part of an adjustment plan aimed at reducing costs and “reorienting priorities” within the group. An employment restructuring which is in addition to those announced by the Volkswagen or Nissan group.
Most of the employees affected by the layoffs worked at the manufacturer’s global technical center in Michigan (United States), outside of strait. These layoffs are in addition to the elimination of more than a thousand jobs in the software and IT services divisions of General Motors, launched in August.
Some of them are the result of poor employee performance, according to US media reports, while others are part of a broader reorganization aimed at preparing the automaker for the development of new electric models and autonomous driving technologies .
The company has a cost-cutting plan on the table that’s worth 2 billion dollars (around 1,897 million euros) for this year, amid a decline in sales in the United States, a significant commercial deterioration in China and the change it faces on the path to a sales mix 100% sustainable over the next few years.
At the end of the third quarter of the year, the automaker increased its net profit by 11.74% to $8.969 million (approximately 8.283 million euros), despite the drop in sales in the United States and the financial problems experienced by its operations in China.
“Competition is fierce and the regulatory environment will become increasingly strict. This is why we are focused on optimizing our margins on internal combustion engines and working to make our electric vehicles profitable in terms of Ebit as quickly as possible,” warned the CEO of GM. Marie Barra.
Other layoffs in the car
General Motors is not the only automaker to have announced a restructuring of its factories. Manufacturers like Volkswagen Group, Audi, Nissan or Dacia They also plan to make layoffs this year due to the slowdown in sales in the various markets of the Old Continent and the entry of new Chinese competitors offering more affordable prices.
The Volkswagen group will be the manufacturer that will carry out the largest restructuring of its operations in Europe. Concretely, the German company plans to close three factories in Germany, which could deprive around 15,000 workers of work. Actually, Audi It is already negotiating the dismissal of 4,500 workers in Germany, which represents 15% of the workforce. Initially, cuts would be limited to divisions outside of auto production, such as the development area, where more than 2,000 jobs could disappear.
For its part, Nissan announced that it would give up 9,000 workers turn around the company’s financial situation with a plan that includes reducing fixed costs by 300,000 million yen (1,810 million euros) and variable costs by an additional 100,000 million yen (603 million euros) .
