Chrysler Makes Cuts

Today Chrysler added on to its North American overhaul by planning to lay off as many as 12,000 workers, and cut production at many plants and discontinue four vehicles. Just days ago Chrysler completed negotiations with the United Auto Workers union. Earlier this year Chrysler was bought this year by Cerberus Capital Management, which has been aggressively trying to slash costs to generate cash. The US auto sales had been on a 17.2 million a year clip, but the automaker expects annual volume to be greatly lower for this year and next. Chrysler first put a recovery plan in place in February. The plan called for 13,000 job cuts and the closing of one major assembly plant. Robert L. Nardelli, Chrysler’s chairman and chief executive, said that the plans changed because of the continued slow down in the US market. Chrysler is struggling against competition from Asian automakers like Toyota. Figures released yesterday showed a 9% decrease for Chrysler from a year ago. Chrysler is eliminating shifts at five assembly plants, leading to a reduction of 8,500 to 10,000 hourly jobs through 2008. A thousand salaried workers are being cut and a thousand contact workers. The new cuts are affecting plants in Belvidere, Ill; Brampton, Ontario; Detroit; and Sterling Heights, Mich.

Chrysler is an American automobile manufacturer that has been producing cars since 1925 and from 1914 under the Dodge name.

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