GM Canada To Cut 1,000 Jobs From A Canadian Facility; Why It May Not Be A Layoff

Automobile major General Motors has decided to hand pink slips to 1,000 of its employees at its Oshawa, Ont., assembly plant, but around the same time, it announced an investment of USD 5.5 billion in its American operations. The announcement was confirmed on Thursday, as GM decided to conclude the production of Chevrolet Camaro at the Oshawa Assembly plant by November, 2015.

While the plant is eager to know a model to be assembled post 2016, GM isn’t ready with a plan yet. A news website reveals that GM will keep only 2,600 people employed in its Oshawa facility by the end of this year, working on only five vehicles, namely: the Chevrolet Impala, Buick Regal, Cadillac XTS, the Impala Limited, and the Chevrolet Equinox.

Meanwhile, GM’s North America president Alan Batey has drawn a specific plan for USD 783.5 million for the company’s three Michigan plants. They are as below:

-- USD 124 million towards its Pontiac Metal Center, where major body panel dies will be pre-tested,

-- USD 520 million will be kept for tooling and equipment for new vehicle programs,

-- USD 139.5 million will be spent in a new body shop and stamping facility upgrades for pre-production vehicles.

“GM Canada continues to examine a range of longer-term opportunities and competitiveness enhancements for Oshawa Assembly working with Unifor, government, supplier and community partners to ensure our operations are as innovative, cost efficient and cost competitive as they can be,” GM Canada said in a statement.

But the biggest question right now to define the move as termination, because GM Canada president said that approximately 60 percent employees at the Oshawa facility are about to retire, so going by his statistics, there may not any layoff, at least technically.

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