General Motors Corp said it will cut a few hundred salaried jobs on Tuesday in its initial effort to reduce its US white-collar work force by 7 percent this year.
The first cuts will be announced at 30 locations, according to a GM spokesman. Employees will be given continued compensation and benefits for a period of time, depending on their length of service, he said. The employees being let go on Tuesday will be asked to leave the company immediately.
"Our aim is to treat the employees being separated with dignity and respect," GM spokesman Robert Herta said. GM said it will offer the laid-off employees placement assistance to find jobs outside the company.
The cuts, part of GM's sweeping restructuring aimed at stemming losses, come a week after the automaker reached a deal with the United Auto Workers union to offer early retirement packages to more than 100,000 hourly workers as part of a plan to eliminate 30,000 jobs and close 12 plants through 2008.
The latest job cuts will be the first of those announced last November, when the struggling automaker said it would let go of 7 percent of its 36,000 white-collar US employees this year.
GM lost $10.6 billion in 2005 as it faced high labour and commodities costs, loss of US market share to foreign rivals and sluggish sales of sport-utility vehicles - typically its largest profit generators.
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