Despite investing in artificial intelligence (AI) to boost productivity and streamline operations, General Motors (GM) laid off about 500 to 600 employees, mostly in IT roles, in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan.
READ MORE:Hundreds of General Motors workers were summoned to an ominous 15-minute virtual meeting - and told their jobs were gone. Employees at the Detroit car giant said they received an oddly timed email inviting them to a short online meeting with human resources on Monday.
At the online meeting they were read a scripted message telling them they had been laid off. Then the meeting ended.
'No appreciation or empathy. No questions. Nothing,' one data analyst who had worked at GM for more than a decade told CNBC. The layoffs hit about 500 to 600 employees, largely in IT roles in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan, according to a person familiar with the cuts.
At the same time, GM is hiring for AI-focused roles as automakers ramp up their push to use artificial intelligence to boost worker productivity and streamline operations. As of now, 80 IT positions are listed including jobs working in AI, motorsports and autonomous vehicles.
'They're going to push AI for everyday work and everything else,' a former employee told CNBC. Employees at the Detroit car giant said they received an oddly timed email inviting them to a short online meeting with human resources on Monday The veteran programmer and data scientist who lost their job said staff had been pushed to use AI more in their daily work before the cuts landed.
'I've seen it firsthand. It can make you much more productive, as a programmer. It can really help you get more work done, but AI isn't going to do you any good if you don't know the business.
' As part of their severance packages, employees were offered sliding-scale compensation based on tenure, along with lump-sum payments to help cover healthcare costs and mental health services through Lyra Health. In a statement released by GM, the company skirted around the role AI played in the recent layoffs.
'GM is transforming its Information Technology organization to better position the company for the future. 'As part of that work, we have made the difficult decision to eliminate certain roles globally,' the statement sent to CNBC read. The brutal cuts make GM the latest major American company to slash white-collar jobs as bosses race to reshape their workforces for the AI age.
San Francisco tech company Cloudfare recently slashed 1,100 workers after touting a 34 percent jump in first-quarter revenue to $639.8 million, fueled in part by its aggressive AI push.
The veteran programmer and data scientist who lost their job said staff had been pushed to use AI more in their daily work before the cuts landed In a statement released by GM, the company skirted around the role AI played in the recent layoffs In a stark internal memo, co-founders of Cloudfare Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn warned staff that AI had fundamentally transformed how the company operates as the company slashed 1,100 positions Read More Goldman Sachs gives brutal jobs warning that will make every American desperate to avoid being laid off In a stark internal memo, co-founders Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn warned staff that AI had fundamentally transformed how the company operates.
The executives said Cloudflare's internal use of AI surged more than 600 percent in just three months, as employees across engineering, HR, finance and marketing increasingly leaned on automated systems. Amazon, Meta, Oracle and Block have all announced job cuts while pointing in some way to AI, automation or efforts to make workers more productive. GM, founded in 1908, remains one of the most famous names in US manufacturing and the parent company behind Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC.
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