DETROIT — Less than two years after entering bankruptcy, General Motors will extend millions of dollars in bonuses to most of its 48,000 hourly workers as a reward for the company’s rapid turnaround after it was rescued by the government.
The payments, disclosed Monday in company documents, are similar to bonuses announced last week for white-collar employees. The bonuses to 76,000 American workers will probably total more than $400 million — an amount that suggests executives have increasing confidence in the automaker’s comeback.
In the four years leading up to its 2009 bankruptcy, GM piled up more than $80 billion in losses and was burdened by enormous debt and costly labor contracts.
“On the whole, we made tremendous progress last year,” chief executive and chairman Dan Akerson said Monday in an e-mail message to employees announcing the payments. “With our collective teamwork, this can be just the beginning.”
The company made $4.2 billion in the first nine months of 2010 and is expected to announce a fourth-quarter profit soon.
Most of GM’s hourly workers will get a record payment of more than $4,000 — more than double the previous record in 1999, at the height of the boom in sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Nearly all 28,000 white-collar workers such as engineers and managers will get 4 percent to 16 percent of their base pay. A few — less than 1 percent — will get 50 percent or more.
The company would not say how much the white-collar bonuses will cost, but calculations made by The Associated Press show the total will probably top $200 million.
Most GM salaried workers earn in excess of $100,000 per year. A bonus of 8 percent, the midpoint of the range, would give them roughly $8,000 each. That means GM would pay out roughly $224 million.
Chrysler, which needed a $12.5 billion bailout, plans to pay bonuses as well. The government owns about 9 percent of Chrysler’s stock.
