March 25th, 2009 by Reed Allmand 
According to an article in the Star-Telegram, General Motors Corp. which is facing the possibility of bankruptcy, has begun implementing white-collar job losses as of Tuesday. On Tuesday, GM laid off 160 workers at its manufacturing engineering operations. Over 3,400 salaried job losses are planned for GM’s U.S. operations. These scheduled job losses are part of a wider 47,000 job losses to be implemented by GM worldwide by the end of the year. Tuesday’s job losses were mostly engineers.
The article said:
“These are good capable people,” spokesman Tom Wilkinson said of those being laid off. “The reductions are just necessary to implement the viability plan and restructure the business to make it self-sustaining.”
Besides the salaried job cuts, GM plans to cut 18,000 more U.S. blue-collar workers by the end of the year. Tuesday is the deadline for hourly workers to accept buyout and early retirement offers…GM workers have until midnight Tuesday to decide if they will take $20,000 cash and a $25,000 car voucher to leave the company.
It is usually a very significant indicator of future bankruptcy when a company begins to layoff “good capable people” just to stay alive. Of course, we saw these white-collar job losses coming; but they won’t be the last of the job losses. And GM won’t be the last corporation to implement job losses on such a massive scale. In terms of the settlement offered to GM blue-collar workers, I find it a bit ironic–a $25,000 car voucher offer to unemployed workers seems a bit ridiculous. Exactly how will these workers purchase and pay for these vehicles? I don’t know the exact terms of the car voucher; but I am pretty confident that they won’t cover the full purchase price of the vehicle; therefore any former employee using them is going to be stuck with a car loan payment. Companies such as GM have always been considered solid and stable. A worker who landed a job at GM could feel that they were secure and had a job “for life.” The fact that GM is implementing massive job losses should be a wakeup call to all American workers, get your financial house in order before you’re next in line for the pink slip.
About Reed Allmand
Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."
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