GM, Chrysler bankruptcies may cost quarter million jobs: report

Bankruptcies of automakers General Motors (GM) and Chrysler could cost as many as quarter million people their jobs over the next year and a half, a media report says.

According to a report in MarketWatch.Com, a publication of Dow Jones & Company, "If all goes according to plan, the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler, which went bankrupt in late April, could cost about a quarter million people their jobs over the next year and a half."

The report quoted a top researcher at the Center for Automotive Research, a non-profit research organisation funded in part by the auto industry as saying that "Whether GM's bankruptcy turns out to be a major or minor chapter in US economic history will depend greatly on how quickly and painlessly it emerges as a new company, ready to compete".

 

In its reorganisation as it comes out of bankruptcy, GM would employ fewer workers, operate fewer plants and produce fewer cars, even in the best-case scenario.

The MarketWatch report said that much of the required downsizing had already taken place as GM's position as the pre-eminent car maker in the world has eroded over the past three decades.

"During that time, GM's US workforce has fallen from a high of 6,20,000 in 1979 to about 1,20,000 now," it stated.