General Motors Co. cut hundreds of jobs on Friday, just days after raising its profit guidance for the year in a move that sent the shares soaring.
The automaker laid off more than 200 salaried staff, mostly at its Technical Center in Warren. The message was delivered around 7 a.m., when the company called some of the affected employees to a Slack channel to say that the firings were due to “business conditions” and not their performance, according to people familiar with the meeting who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.
GM has been streamlining the company to boost profits at a time when automakers are trying to cope with President Donald Trump’s changing policies. Tariffs have added costs that automakers mostly have not offset with higher prices, and they are reining in investments for electric vehicles that are selling slowly as the government eliminates incentives.
Earlier this week, GM reported better-than-expected earnings for the third quarter, sending its stock to the best one-day gain in more than five years. The carmaker boosted its profit forecast for the year, helped in part by policy changes that are supporting sales of high-margin, gas-powered SUVs and trucks.
Trump on Friday pointed to the performance of GM and Ford Motor Co. as indications that his tariff policies are working, saying in a social media post that the two automakers are “UP BIG.”
When deciding on positions to cut, the company looked through its white-collar ranks to find duplicate jobs and ways to work more efficiently, said one of the people familiar with the matter.
In a statement to Bloomberg, a GM spokesperson attributed the cuts to changes within its design engineering ranks, that resulted in the elimination of computer-aided design staff.
“We’re restructuring our design engineering team to strengthen our core architectural design engineering capabilities,” the company said via email. “As a result, a number of CAD execution roles have been eliminated. We recognize the efforts and accomplishments of the impacted team members, and we thank them for their contributions.”
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