In the latest round of job cuts, General Motors said today that it will reduce salaried employment globally from a current level of 73,000 to approximately 63,000, with 3,400 of those job cuts coming from the United States where the company employs around 29,500 salaried workers. Most of these reductions are expected to take place to take place by May 1, 2009. Furthermore, GM also announced a temporary pay reduction for a majority of its U.S. salaried employees.Beginning from May 1, in the U.S., executive employees will have their base pay reduced by 10%, and many other salaried employees will see reductions of 3 to 7%.
General Motors said that the job cuts are part of the company's restructuring plan that was submitted to Congress on December 2, 2008. The announcement this week begins implementation of this aspect of the plan. "These difficult actions are necessitated by a severe drop in vehicle sales worldwide and by the need to restructure GM for long-term," said the automaker in a statement.
