Joining the layoff trend, General Motors sacks hundreds of employees to reduce cost

In an effort to boost profits and reduce its headcounts, General Motors has joined the bandwagon of job cuts. The automaker is making some performance-related job cuts among its salaried employees and executives. The job cut is expected to affect a small faction of the company's workforce, stated GM.

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Even though there has been no specific clarification about the number of laid off employees by the company, the job cut is expected to affect over 500 employees, reported CNBC. Currently, the Detroit automaker employs around 81,000 people across the world. The company has informed the employees on an internal memo, said Chief People Officer Arden Hoffman. He also informed that the impacted workers have also started leaving the company.

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Notably, the job cut has come at a time, when the company CEO announced a month ago that they won't be doing any job cuts in the near time. General Motors Chair and CEO Mary Barra said during an earning call that the company is planning to cut on its costing and save around $2 billion over the next two years. To do so, the company will strive to reduce complexity in all four products and reduce corporate overhead expenses across board. He also ensured that the company is not planning any layoff.

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“The areas we're focusing on include continuing to reduce complexity in all of our products, and reducing corporate overhead expenses across the board. I do want to be clear, though. We're not planning layoffs. We are limiting our hiring to only the most strategically important roles and will use attrition to help manage overall head count,” she said at the time.

In a an emailed statement, the company said the recent cuts were the result of the company performance and will help in company's cost reduction effort.

Earlier, GM competitor, Ford Motors had announced to end 3,800 jobs over the next three years in Europe as part of its restructuring program to improve its cost structure.

(With agency inputs)