SEOUL, KOREA - GM Korea said on March 16 that it has processed 194 applicants for voluntary retirement after taking applications for about four weeks between February 7 and March 10.

 

This is the fourth time for the company to downsize its employee numbers since 2002 when it acquired Daewoo Motors. Earlier it had planned to cut 250 workers through the voluntary program, but had to extend the deadline for another 10 days from the end of February after taking much fewer-than-expected applications. The total number of workers at GM Korea is about 6,000.

 

Of the 194 applicants, about 50 percent were those in their 50s. GM Korea decided to grant those who joined the company between 1999 and 2010 two years' salaries and those veterans who signed on with the company prior to 1999 three years' salaries as severance pay.

 

The company is cutting back on the Korean operation as the parent company decided to pull its Chevrolet brand out of the European market until the end of 2015. GM Korea supplies a bulk of Chevrolet cars destined for the European market. Already it decided to cut back 35 percent of output in its Gunsan plant from last month after the headquarters office in Detroit excluded Korea from the regions for producing the follow-up model to the Cruze.

 

The union representatives are working closely with the management on how to reassign the surplus workforce in Gunsan and how to renegotiate wages as the productivity level at the plant has declined substantially. As the Gunsan plant reduces output, so many suppliers are also suffering from low capacity use at below 50-percent level. Although the company denies there would be no forceful downsizing measures, workers are still fretting over the future of their company.