Chrysler group, which has cut about 34,000 jobs as part of a painful turnaround since 2001, has no plans for more big layoffs this year, a senior company official said.
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“We’re pretty much over the major, what I call, restructuring,” Tom LaSorda, the manufacturing chief who was tapped last month to take over as Chrysler’s new COO, told Reuters.
“I would say there will be no major job losses this year,” he reportedly added.
LaSorda, who officially moves into the COO job in May, spoke during a tour of Chrysler’s Windsor Assembly Plant in Canada, just across the border from Detroit.
He reportedly acknowledged some job losses were still likely, especially through attrition and productivity gains at Chrysler, which has been struggling to return to sustainable profits amid Detroit’s price war and hyper-competitive US market conditions.
But LaSorda told Reuters that Chrysler, which has enjoyed recent sales gains, sees its payroll numbers staying mostly flat, a dramatic change for a company that lost about 26% of its work force through the recent restructuring moves.
Luckily for LaSorda, a Canadian, it was his predecessor as COO, Wolfgang Bernhard, who oversaw most of the the U.S. job cuts and aggressive cost-cutting efforts and is now moving back to his native Germany to take over DaimlerChrysler’s Mercedes division, the report added.
Chrysler builds its new Pacifica wagon at Windsor Assembly, a vehicle that got off to a slow sales start last year.
But it has also poured millions of dollars into a 16-week retooling and makeover of the plant, which launched production of the all-new Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans in December, Reuters said.
Chrysler introduced the first US-styled minivan at Windsor Assembly 20 years ago and it has long been known as king of the road when it comes to so-called “people haulers”, the report said
But Reuters noted that Chrysler faces growing competition in an increasingly crowded segment, and looked set to lose more vital US market share before the roll-out of its new minivans, which feature what the company touts as “disappearing” second- and third-row seats. They fold flat into the floor, in an industry first, and required a total redesign of the vehicle’s underbody.
Together with the plant retooling, Chrysler spent about $US400 million on the launch of the new minivans, which it has just begun shipping to dealers.
LaSorda told Reuters he was confident that big price tag would enable Chrysler to maintain its share of the segment, an important profit engine, and possibly even increase it.
“We’ve got 38% of the market right now,” he told Reuters. “We intend to stay there and grow it.”
He reportedly did not elaborate, except to say Chrysler would be happy to have 40% of the U.S. minivan market.
Highlighting the cut-throat environment in the US industry, LaSorda noted that Chrysler’s new minivans were priced below its older models, Reuters said.
