In case you saw it. Here is the article

http://www.hotrod.com/projectbuild/hdrp ... index.html

Who would actually want to work for GM? There's no job security whatsoever, it seems every month they lay off a few thousand employees.

I'd work for them for an internship. Interns get laid off at the end of the summer anyway.

I used to be interested in them, in automotive engineering in general actually, but with healthcare prices skyrocketing, unions dominating their workforces, and having the huge legacy costs associated with retirees, its really no surprise to anyone they are struggling to break even. The Japanese and Korean car companies are learning from Detroit's mistakes though, and are trying to stop the unions from advancing into their plants, but that is a battle they are losing.

Are they laying off mostly hourly employees? Obviously they have to lay off some salaried managers, but a design position is probalby a safe area. Its just production that is a bit flakey.

Design isn't even all that safe. More and more of that is being outsourced to automotive suppliers. You still have to have a team for large-scale project management, but anymore, they just hand the supplier a set of dimensional requirements; it's up to the supplier to design for manufacture. At least that's the direction they're heading.

Also, Ford has plans to (at least temporarily) close 14 or 16 Ford plants. Some are vehicle assembly plants, some engine plants, some component plants. They'll shut down everybody who works in those plants, from the bottom to the top. They may transfer some of their key design and project management individuals, but they'll let most of 'em go.

there are very few salary workers the work in any ford production plants, and even then they arent engineers, they are floor managers, and general managers. though ford is laying off a third of their salaried workers, mostly consisting of near retirees and then some "involuntary seperation"

Im from detroit, pretty much everyone I know works for a car company some way or another, its been somewhat scary.

That Solstice sounded nice though.