GM To Idle Five Factories In North America, Cut More Than 14,000 Jobs As It Focuses On Autonomous, Electric Vehicles (chicagotribune.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Chicago Tribune: General Motors will cut up to 14,000 workers in North America and put five plants up for possible closure as it abandons many of its car models and restructures to cut costs and focus more on autonomous and electric vehicles. The reduction includes about 8,000 white-collar employees, or 15 percent of GM's North American white-collar workforce. Some will take buyouts while others will be laid off. Four factories in the U.S. and one in Canada could be shuttered by the end of 2019 if the automaker and its unions don't come up with an agreement to allocate more work to those facilities, GM said in a statement Monday. Another two will close outside North America. The company has marked a sedan plant in Detroit, a compact car plant in Ohio, and another assembly plant outside Toronto for possible closure. Also at risk are two transmission plants, one outside Detroit and another in Baltimore. GM CEO Mary Barra said the company is "still hiring people with expertise in software and electric and autonomous vehicles, and many of those who will lose their jobs are now working on conventional cars with internal combustion engines," reports Dallas News. "Barra said the industry is changing rapidly and moving toward electric propulsion, autonomous vehicles and ride-sharing, and GM must adjust with it."

The restructuring comes as the U.S. and North American auto markets are shifting away from cars toward SUVs and trucks. "In October, almost 65 percent of new vehicles sold in the U.S. were trucks or SUVs," reports Chicago Tribune. "It was about 50 percent cars just five years ago."

Comments

Trump 2020!

[Huge_UID]

I'm torn between feeling sorry for and laughing at the folks that voted for Trump because of his promises to keep factories open.

Re:Trump 2020!

[hairyfeet]

Riiight because the better choice was someone smashing their phones with a hammer and wiping their server with DoD software like a pedo with the FBI outside their door with a warrant?

Protip...a LOT of the votes that Trump got were not FOR Trump but AGAINST Shillary the crooked bankster bitch, and if the DNC had sold itself to the most crooked insider since Nixon you'd have President Bernie. So next time you want to bitch about the current state of affairs direct that anger where its warranted, to the DNC that sold the country for 30 pieces of silver. Hell its because of Shillary that Trump won the GOP nomination, or did you forget her ordering her lickspittles in the MSM to push Trump in the "Pied Piper Strategy" because even she knew she was such a walking piece of offal that the only chance she had was against Trump? Kinda fucking sad that the left allowed their party to become such a corrupt cabal of insiders that their candidate couldn't even beat a reality TV star that believes damn near every conspiracy theory, huh?

Re: Trump 2020!

[OrangeTide]

Democrats consistently promise a much more sensible, viable and believable alternative of job training, reduced cost education, healthcare reform (which would increase career mobility) etc.

Trump voters like my Dad, uncles, older blue collar neighbors, etc. don't want to be retrained for a new job. They want the world to remain the same, so they can continue working the same job they've been at since the 1970's.

Hillary voters like my Mom, aunts, and retired neighbors want health care reform and want the next generation to have a shot at a good education that doesn't saddle young people with debt.

Given the chance, Democrats may deliver on some, all or none of these.

Oh I personally agree with that. I usually vote for the one offering something sane, even if they aren't likely to deliver everything. Some people voted for something insane because they were against any sort of "hope & change" party, especially the change part.

So on the one hand you have Trump promising with no evidence to restore an economic model that is a proven failure.

Remember, Trump voters view him as a successful person (rich) and he's been a household name for decades (famous). I don't know what the fallacy is called where a person ignores any evidence contrary to their own position, but it makes it impossible to have a rational debate with people who have drank the Kool-aid.

Proven failure? Or Possible success? I know which one I would choose, and which one I would expect a bunch of idiot Trump trash voters to chose.

Trump reflects America better than any politician of this century. He is confident in his superiority and importance, despite numerous failures and limited success. He is quite racist in speech and in action, but denies being so (just like America). He pines for a era that never really exists (he managed to tapped into the minds of middle aged white men that believe they've been disenfranchised, hoping to bring about an era where every man is a king of his castle). He blames everyone but himself for failures, usually the media, the immigrants, wall street (the jews), and sometimes "crooked" Hillary.

Cars are dead

[110010001000]

People are buying SUVs and trucks. Most manufacturers are doing the same type of restructuring at this point.

Re:Cars are dead

[HornWumpus]

CAFE requirements killed them. Nobody wants a 50 mpg car, they suck, no fun. But rules lawyers to the rescue.

Re:Bullshit

[gweihir]

At this time, probably. In the future, however, electric cars are a lot easier to build than conventional ones and need a lot fewer workers to build them, because they are much simpler mechanically.

Incipient recession?

[haruchai]

Whether Trump is to blame or not, this news coupled with Ford's troubles have me wondering if a recession is nigh and how bad it'll be.
If it happens I'm sure Agolf Twitler and his sycophants will try to blame Obama.
And they won't have a clue what to do.

Re:Incipient recession?

[quenda]

Whether Trump is to blame or not,

Trump is not to blame for the closures. But he is to blame for making so many promises he could not keep.
Not that he is the first politician guilty of this.

The sad thing is that so many people chose to believe Trump could reverse the tides of automation, and reopen coal mines with pick and shovel instead of 10,000 ton excavators.
Trump voters are definitely not idiots, but they want to believe so much that there are easy answers. That Trump won with such promises says a lot about how bad his opponents were, from both parties.

Re:Incipient recession?

[Barsteward]

"Trump voters are definitely not idiots, but they want to believe so much that there are easy answers." - the first half of your sentence is disproved by the second half, thats the problem when you "believe" over "common sense". Prayers don't work.

Hopefully, Tesla will buy a plant

[WindBourne]

Seriously, like NUMMA, it would be useful to buy one of these plants with equipment that works. They could get MY, Semi, and perhaps Roadster up quickly. Nevada is supposed to gear up to 105 GW worth of Li-ion batteries.