General Motors will reportedly lay off about 500 workers at its Orion Assembly Plant north of Detroit as it eliminates a shift there.
DETROIT, MI - General Motors will reportedly lay off about 500 workers at its Orion Assembly Plant north of Detroit as it eliminates a shift there.
Company officials are scheduled to inform the workers of the cuts Friday, according to a report in Automotive News. The report says GM is shifting the lost jobs at the Orion site to other plants, including Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, where the company announced Thursday it is adding 1,200 new positions.
The Orion Assembly Plant employs about 1,600 hourly and 200 salaried workers. It's where GM builds the Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano small cars, and neither has been selling well, as Americans' appetite as of late has been for larger vehicles like trucks and crossovers.
Through the first nine months of 2015, sales of the Sonic have plummeted 35 percent on an annual basis to 50,535 units. Sales of the Verano have dropped 27 percent to 25,002 units.
The Orion site has seen several adjustments over the past year amid the lagging demand for small cars. In June, GM said it was laying off 100 workers there, and last November the company eliminated 160 positions.
Later in June, the Detroit automaker said it was adding 300 jobs at Orion as part of a $245 million investment there for launching an all-new vehicle program. Industry observers believe the new vehicle to be a small Cadillac crossover.
GM also announced earlier this year it would build the Chevy Bolt EV at Orion.
It is not immediately clear how these plans will affect the company's workforce at the Metro Detroit plant.
David Muller is the automotive and business reporter for MLive Media Group in Detroit. Email him at dmuller@mlive.com, follow him on Twitter or find him on Facebook.