General Motors delivered a treat to investors earlier today when it revealed a third quarter income of $2.5 (£1.9 / €2.2) billion thanks to strong sales of its trucks and crossovers.
GM is obviously pleased with the results and noted sales of pricey versions of the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra have “exceeded expectations.” While that’s certainly good news for the automaker, it didn’t stop the company from pulling a Halloween trick on its workforce.
As The Detroit News reports, GM is looking to cut costs and will do this by reducing their workforce. As part of this effort, the company has offered buyouts to 18,000 of its 50,000 employees in North America. That’s a huge number and it represents over a third of their workforce on the continent.
Employees will have until November 19th to decide if they want to accept the buyout and it appears the company could layoff employees if not enough people agree to take the severance package. There’s would word on how many employees could get the axe, but GM said it will evaluate the response to the buyouts before making any decisions.
The news comes right ahead of the holiday season and will likely cause a lot of concern for the company’s employees. That being said, it doesn’t appear GM is planning to make any immediate cuts to its workforce aside from the buyouts.
Getting back to the financials, GM delivered nearly 700,000 vehicles in the United States in the third quarter and the average transaction price climbed by approximately $800 (£626 / €707) to set a new third quarter record of more than $36,000 (£28,194 / €31,814). This is nearly $4,000 (£3,132 / €3,535) above the industry average, thanks in part to strong sales of trucks, crossovers and SUVs.
Speaking of the latter, sales of the soon to be replaced Chevrolet Tahoe, Suburban and GMC Yukon climbed approximately 12 percent year over year. The Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon also posted the best third-quarter mid-size pickup truck sales since 2004.
