Corvette plant in Bowling Green to layoff 110
Plant in Bowling Green to layoff 110
By Jenna Mink - The Daily News
General Motors intends to lay off 110 workers in January and shut down production for two weeks at its Corvette assembly plant in Bowling Green as it slashes Corvette production from 15 vehicles an hour to 11.
The plant also will shut down its Cadillac XLR production during December, temporarily laying off about 30 employees who work on the XLR line. The layoffs in January affect Corvette and Cadillac XLR production workers. The plant employs about 800 workers.
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Plant officials informed employees of the cuts Friday morning.
"Most of our employees knew that more changes would be made to our production schedule based upon more recent sales figures," said Andrea Hales, communications director for the Bowling Green plant. "I just don't know if they expected it to be as big of an impact as what we announced this morning."
Company-wide, GM plans to cut 5,500 jobs and warned Friday that it might run out of money by the end of the year.
The January cuts in Bowling Green top a list of gloomy announcements for GM workers this month. Last week, officials announced plans to close the plant for a week in December to re-evaluate inventory and lessen production numbers for the month.
About a month ago, the Bowling Green plant closed for a week to slice Corvette production from 18.5 to 15 vehicles an hour, a move that resulted in about 70 lost jobs.
Plant officials plan to cut XLR production in 2009 but said they do not yet know details of the production cuts. Officials also are not sure whether the Corvette line will face further cuts next year, Hales said.
Corvette sales took a nosedive in the past few months. Sales plummeted about 53 percent in October compared with sales through October last year. Cadillac XLR sales decreased 56 percent this year compared with sales through October 2007.
