General Motors said it will lay off 1,314 employees at two Michigan plants, adding the one that produces the Chevrolet Bolt EV, which the company has discontinued, at least for now.
US autoworkers have been hit hard in the past week, with Stellantis also announcing that it is laying off thousands of workers from its Jeep plants in Detroit and Toledo, Ohio.
GM says it plans to cut 945 jobs at the Lake Orion meeting plant due to the end of Bolt EV and EUV production on December 18. The plant is expected to produce Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV in GM’s new Ultium EV. platform after a $4 billion investment, however, the company delayed the launch from 2024 to 2025. To achieve this, “construction includes a significant expansion of amenities and capacity at the site, adding new large warehouses of frames and paint and new general stores. ” sets and batteries. ” package assembly areas,” GM spokesman Kevin Kelly told The Detroit Press. GM says it will bring back the popular Chevrolet Bolt EV, at least the larger Bolt EUV, and that the next-generation styling will reappear on the Ultium platform in 2025. The automaker is phasing out its BEV2 platform and migrating to the Ultium battery. which will be used for its next generation electric cars, including the Cadillac Lyriq, Hummer EV, Chezy Silverado EV, among others. Meanwhile, 369 more employees at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant, where GM produced its Chevrolet Camaro Coupe, will stop working this week. Muscle Car production ended yesterday, December 14, with the final vehicles rolling off the production line. The layoffs will begin Jan. 2, according to Kelly. According to CNN, UAW staff will be “offered other opportunities in Michigan,” adding jobs at the ZERO plant in Detroit-Hamtramck. This is all going down after GM ended its new contract with the UAW. after what was one of the longest personnel changes in the automotive sector in 25 years. GM said it will have to restructure now that, among other things, the new UAW contract includes staff from GM Subsystem LLC, a GM subsidiary. According to The Detroit News, those staff had their own contracts before signing them and were paid less than classic GM production staff for doing the same work. Now, under the UAW contract, their old wages of $18. 50 to $22 an hour are higher to make up production wages in the new deal, which top out at $35. 88 an hour.
Jennifer is an editor at Electrek. Based in France, she worked in the past at Wired, Fast Company, and Agence France-Presse. Send them comments, suggestions, or recommendations via X (@JMossalgue) or jennifer@9to5mac. com.