Auto giant Stellantis offers buyouts to 33,500 workers
The company behind carmakers Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Fiat will offer voluntary buyouts to more than 33,500 U.S. employees, it announced Wednesday, as part of its transition to build more electric vehicles.
Stellantis said it will extend the buyouts to roughly 31,000 hourly and 2,500 salaried U.S. workers, plus others in Canada. Earlier this year, it idled a factory in Belvidere, Illinois, where Jeep Cherokee SUVs were made.
“In response to today’s increasingly competitive global market conditions and the necessary shift to electrification, Stellantis is thoroughly reviewing its North American operations to improve efficiency, reduce costs and protect the competitiveness of our products to allow for further strategic investments to support our transformation,” the company said in a statement.
Certain nonunion workers who have been employed at least 15 years with Stellantis, previously known as Fiat-Chrysler or FCA, will be notified of details of the buyouts next week.
Unionized workers will get separate severance offers. Those who joined Stellantis before October 2007, when the United Auto Workers signed a labor agreement with the company, are eligible to receive a $50,000 payout, according to a person familiar with the terms, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to speak publicly. Workers hired after that date will receive other amounts linked to their seniority.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain called the job cuts “a slap in the face” to workers who helped the company during the Great Recession.
“Stellantis’ push to cut thousands of jobs while raking in billions in profits is disgusting,” Fain said in a statement. “Even now, politicians and taxpayers are bankrolling the electric vehicle transition, and this is the thanks the working class gets.”
Stellantis reported the equivalent of roughly $18 billion in net profits last year. Its stock was mostly flat on the news Wednesday.
Other automakers over the past several months have announced job-shedding measures that executives have attributed to needed cost reductions and new electric vehicle projects.
General Motors earlier this month said about 5,000 salaried employees accepted buyouts as part of the carmaker’s goal to eliminate $2 billion in expenses from its balance sheet.
On Tuesday, GM subsidiary Chevrolet said it would stop making the Bolt, the company’s most popular and least expensive EV, to focus on more advanced electric vehicles. The factory in Lake Orion, Mich., which employs 1,270 workers, is being retooled to produce electric trucks, the company said.
Ford in August said it planned to cut 3,000 white collar jobs in North America, and in February said it would eliminate close to 4,000 jobs in Europe, bringing some of those roles to the United States.