White-Collar Blues In the Auto Industry

Chrysler Is Latest to Announce Cuts

DaimlerChrysler AG said yesterday that it is cutting 6,000 administrative and management jobs, including about 1,500 in the United States, becoming the latest automaker to shed thousands of white-collar workers.

The announcement came a day after that of a Ford Motor Co. restructuring, which includes a reduction of about 4,000 salaried positions, some of them contract workers, by the end of March.

General Motors Corp. eliminated 6 to 7 percent of its 36,000 salaried employees each of the past three years "through normal attrition and special programs," according to spokesman Stefan Weinmann. GM expects a similar reduction this year.

While U.S. automakers are eliminating unionized workers by the tens of thousands, they are also paring their ranks of engineers, executives and other white-collar workers.

Oftentimes, white-collar, nonunion workers in the manufacturing industries are on the front line of staff reductions. Companies do not have to go through negotiations to eliminate nonunion jobs.

The workers often cost less to fire because they do not have the same protections that organized workers have. For example, the Big Three automakers pay into a job bank, which pays hourly workers even if they have been laid off.

"White-collar workers in an economic crunch usually get it in the neck first," said Robert Bruno, professor of labor and industrial relations at the University of Illinois. "They are not the largest number, but they were the easiest to let go."

Both blue-collar and white-collar jobs have fallen victim to increased productivity from new technology.

"We see it in engineering, where they moved from a physical to a virtual world," said David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research. The work is now "heavily computer-based, which has enabled a huge increase in productivity, and fewer people are required."

Ford's white-collar cuts, first announced in November, will reduce North American salary costs by 10 percent, the company said. Ford cut an additional 2,750 white-collar jobs earlier last year.

The company would not release details of severance packages available to white-collar workers. The amount a worker receives in a separation or severance agreement depends on years of service, said Marcey Evans, a spokeswoman.

The company employs 35,000 salaried workers in North American automotive operations.

Ford also started reducing its corporate officer ranks -- executives appointed by the board and at the level of vice president or above -- yesterday, hoping to cut the number by six by the end of the quarter.

Stephen G. Lyons will retire from his position as group vice president for North American marketing, sales and service. He will be replaced by Cisco Codina, vice president in charge of the customer service division. Darryl B. Hazel, vice president of marketing, will replace Codina.

Ford cut one corporate officer position in product development and one in marketing, sales and service. Barbara L. Gasper, the company's vice president of investor relations, will leave, and the position will no longer be at the officer level. Tim O'Brien, Ford's vice president of corporate relations, will become the deputy chief of staff, and his position will also not be officer-level.

Ford's salaried workers, however, may have an easier time finding work than the 30,000 union workers. White-collar auto-industry workers, Cole said, typically have marketable skills that can help land them jobs at other automotive companies or at firms outside the industry.

Hyundai Motor Co. will be adding engineers and other workers to its laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Toyota Motor Corp. is tripling the size of its Ann Arbor facility, according to Cole. With a large number of white-collar workers retiring from skilled auto-industry jobs, he said, openings for salaried workers will increase. "Even though it will be a . . . hardship on individuals now, we're going to run into a stone wall very quickly on [finding] people with skills."