General Motors will reportedly cut hundreds of jobs across its global workforce as it looks towards saving $2 billion in costs over the coming two years.
The cuts consist of job losses for executive-level and salaried workers and started from February 28. While The General hasn’t specified precisely how many jobs are being slashed, The Detroit News suggests that 500 people are about to be laid off.
“To deliver on our commitments and win in this industry, we must have a winning team and hold ourselves accountable for performing at a high level; by focusing on our efficiency, we are preparing for a more competitive environment,” GM spokesman David Barnas said. “Today’s action follows our most recent performance calibration and supports managing the attrition curve as part of our overall structural costs reduction effort. This action impacts a small number of salaried employees and executives globally.”
Read: GM Will Idle Its Indiana Truck Plant For Two Weeks Next Month
Interestingly, the layoffs come just weeks after General Motors chief executive Mary Barra said that there were no job cuts planned and that they wouldn’t be needed to achieve its planned $2 billion in cost savings.
“The areas we’re focusing on include continuing to reduce complexity in all of our products and reducing corporate overhead expenses across the board,” Barra told analysts at the time. “I do want to be clear, though: We’re not planning layoffs. We are limiting our hiring to only the most strategically important roles, and we’ll use attrition to help manage overall headcount.”
