DETROIT — About 7,500 General Motors workers — roughly 12 percent of the automaker’s U.S. hourly workforce — have signed up to take buyout and early-retirement incentives to leave the company, GM said Thursday.
Also, Chrysler said Thursday that it would extend its deadline to entice blue-collar workers to leave. The old deadline was today.
GM offered $20,000 cash and a $25,000 voucher to buy a car to all of its 62,400 hourly U.S. employees in an effort to further trim its blue-collar workforce to match reduced sales.
Most of those who chose to leave took early-retirement offers, said a person familiar with the numbers who did not want to be identified because the breakdown had not been made public. There were very few who took the buyouts, the person said.
The deadline to decide was Tuesday, and many of the workers waited until the last minute to turn in their paperwork, the person said.
The workers have seven days from the date they turn in the paperwork to rescind their decision, so many will have to decide by Tuesday.
For those who will leave, the effective date of their departure is no later than Wednesday, GM said in a statement.
GM has enough workers on layoff to fill all 7,500 vacancies created by the departures, the person familiar with GM’s plans said.
But if demand increases and more workers are needed, the company could hire new people at a new lower- tier wage of about $14 an hour agreed to by the United Auto Workers union in 2007, the person said.
