There was more discouraging news for Oshawa, Ont., today with word that General Motors plans to temporarily lay off a third shift at its car plant as it cuts 2,000 jobs across North America.
The Canadian Auto Workers union says the automaker will temporarily lay off the shift starting Feb. 9, affecting about 700 workers.
Other cuts will fall at car factories in Lordstown, Ohio, where 890 workers will go on indefinite layoff starting Feb. 2 as well as 390 in Orion Township, Mich., where a third shift will be cut.
Oshawa Mayor John Gray said in a phone interview it's discouraging to hear so much negative news about the auto sector.
"We've gone through these types of things before, but never, ever to this extent." Gray said.
"But to be consistently receiving bad news -- first it was a shift at the truck plant, then it became the whole truck plant -- now it's car production."
News of the layoffs came on the eve of a deadline for Canadian automakers to provide a restructuring plan to federal and Ontario politicians who have been asked to bail out the troubled industry.
Gray said the "big frustration" auto-dependent cities face is what he called "wishy-washiness" from the federal government.
"I think they just got to make a decision -- do they want to shed 400,000 jobs in the province of Ontario?"
Early today, some auto workers expressed shock while others at the car plant took news of looming layoffs in stride.
Following his overnight shift, Mike Sadler said news of the latest layoffs in the auto sector were "quite a shock to everybody."
However, co-worker Bill Harris took a longer view, saying the latest negative news in the industry is "only a blip in the economy."
"Everything's going to come back, everything's going to be fine," he said.
GM's U.S. sales fell 41 per cent in November when compared with the same month last year, and they are down 22 per cent for the first 11 months of the year.
Overall, U.S. sales were off 37 per cent in November, the worst level in 26 years, and were down more than 16 per cent so far this year.
Automakers have blamed tight or non-existent credit, economic woes and a lack of consumer confidence for the slump, and they aren't predicting much of a recovery in 2009.
