Layoffs in Store for DaimlerChrysler

Jan. 29 -- Ailing automaker Chrysler will decrease its workforce by 26,000 people by the end of March through voluntary retirements and layoffs.

Executives and management are being offered early-retirement programs and retirement incentives; but for those who actually build the cars, details are still being worked out.

The cuts are part of Stuttgart-based DaimlerChrysler's restructuring plan, which also calls for six manufacturing plants to be idled through 2002, are designed to help the company become profitable.

"These decisions are absolutely necessary to be kept competitive and in fact to survive," Chrysler Group President and Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche said at a news conference. "They must be made as soon as possible to take control of costs and end uncertainty that many people are feeling."

Zetsche added the company's ultimate goal is better customer service. "We are 100 percent focused on the market, on our customers, on our prospects, and we want to serve them better in the future than we could in the past."

But, Craig Cather, president of CSM Worldwide, an automotive forecasting firm in Farmington Hills Mich., says today's action will mean the company will not be as innovative and will offer less choice at the showroom in the not too distant future. "No company can cut 20 percent of its workforce and expect to be able to do the same things they've been doing for a number of years."

Wall Street reacted negatively to the news, sending shares of DaimlerChrysler down $0.95, or nearly 2 percent, to $47.29. That's far below a post-merger high of $101. The combined company is now worth less than Daimler was alone before the union.

Who's Affected?

Chrysler said it expects a large part of the job-cutting — which will involve 19,000 hourly employees and 6,800 salaried workers — to be done through retirement programs, achieved within the framework of existing union contracts.

Nancy Rae, senior vice president at Chrysler, told a news conference that 400-plus white-collar workers who are at least 62 years old and eligible for retirement would be offered an incentive to retire. While the details are still being worked out, Rae said the package would include a cash payment and a car voucher.