GM cuts jobs, plants

GENERAL Motors has announced it will slash 30,000 jobs, close four assembly plants and four stamping and powertrain plants across the United States.

The move will save $US7 billion ($A9.5 billion) – $US1 billion above its previous goal – by the end of next year. However, the US crisis does not affect Holden, which had already planned to trim 1400 from its Adelaide workforce.

GM CEO Rick Wagoner said GM would also trim production at several other US plants by the end of 2008. The moves will cut production capacity by about one million units by the end of 2008, he said.

The cuts affect about a quarter of the North American factory workforce at GM and are the deepest since it closed 21 plants and axed 74,000 jobs over four years from December 1991.

Last Thursday, Mr Wagoner sent a message to employees stating that the large financial losses at the company were unsustainable but that GM was not headed toward bankruptcy.