GM boosted its U.S. workforce by nearly 10% since last year's bankruptcy, says Girsky.
With demand rising for its latest offerings, General Motors has added 6.900 new jobs since emerging from bankruptcy in July 2009, says a senior company executive.
In an interview with a Detroit radio station, WJR, GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky also suggested that observers “will be encouraged” by the earnings numbers the automaker plans to report this month. Inside sources have indicated that GM is waiting for the reaction to its second-quarter earnings before formally announcing the details of its planned IPO.
The long-troubled maker has been seeing a steady rise in demand since it exited Chapter 11 protection, despite the numerous plant closures authorized by the courts – and the sale or abandonment of four of its eight North American brands. Overall, the maker posted a 5.4% increase in sales during July, even as arch-rival Toyota’s volumes declined.
Significantly, sales by GM’s four surviving brands rose 25% for the month, and the Buick and Cadillac brands, in particular, saw volumes more than double.
The increases have largely been driven by demand for GM’s newest products, such as the Chevrolet Equinox crossover and Buick LaCrosse sedan. If anything, the maker has been struggling to keep up with customer orders, dealers having barely a 15-day supply of the Equinox on their lots, in an industry where a 60-day supply is the norm. That has led GM to bring back some workers on long-term furlough and also hire some new employees.
About 1,100 of the added jobs are in Michigan, including not only a Lansing assembly plant but a new factory in suburban Detroit assembling battery packs for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle.
GM has also added about 2,700 workers in Canada, many to help boost production of the Equinox.
Even with the new hires, GM is but a shadow of its former self. In the mid-1970s, the company employed roughly 1 million, the overwhelming majority based in the U.S. The American workforce has fallen by 45,000 over the last three years, to just 77,000 – not much more than the much smaller Chrysler employed at the middle of the last decade.
But Chrysler is also adding workers, including more than 1,000 coming back to the Jefferson North Assembly plant, in Detroit, that recently began building the new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and Chrysler, which also went through bankruptcy last year, promised to boost its own workforce still more as it launches a mostly all-new product line-up over the next several years.
GM has been under heavy pressure from the White House to begin the process of going public again, and is expected to follow this month’s earnings announcement by revealing the details of its Initial Public Offering. About a quarter of the U.S. Treasury’s shares — the government currently owns 61% of GM — are likely to be offered. Initially forecasts predicted the Treasury could lose billions on last year’s GM bailout, but the automaker’s recent improvements — and the strong performance by rival Ford’s stock — is leading many analysts to predict GM shares could do better than anticipated, reducing or even possibly eliminating any government loss.