General Motors stated on Thursday it prepares to downsize production at an assembly plant in Detroit beginning later on this month as it aims to handle the decreasing U.S. sedan sales.
The automaker stated that effective October 20 its Detroit-Hamtramck plant will run under a reduced production schedule.
“This action will help maintain more steady production,” the automaker stated.
The statement followed reports that automaker’s strategies to close the plant for about six weeks from mid-November and lay off about 1,500 employees then cut production approximately 20 percent once operations resume, according to a source knowledgeable about the strategies.
That output cut would result in around 200 lost jobs. The move was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal.
General Motors refused to discuss those reports.
The Hamtramck plant makes four badly performing sedan models, including the Buick LaCrosse, sales of them are down 21.5 percent year to this day, and the Chevrolet Impala, which is reduced 31.8 percent.
Both GM and competitor Ford Motor are having hard time to control high inventories of passenger cars as customers have moved to purchasing pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. Experts have blamed a large portion of the U.S. auto market’s extreme stocks of unsold vehicles on GM.
