GM Launches New Round of Skilled-Trades Buyouts

General Motors Co. is offering buyouts and early retirement offers to an unspecified number of skilled-trades workers at selected locations, the Detroit Free Press reports.

GM confirms the buyouts but declines to disclose details. The company offered as much as $75,000 to 4,000 skilled-trades employees in late 2011.

Chuck Stevens, GM CFO for North America, told analysts last month that the company still has too many of those workers. Newer machinery is better maintained and breaks down less often, the Free Press notes.

Skilled-trades workers such as electricians, millwrights, pipefitters and welders earn an average of $32 per hour, about $4 more than other veteran production employees, according to the newspaper. It says GM, Ford and Chrysler would like to emulate their Asian competitors in North America, who hire some employees who have multiple specialized skills and also work on the assembly line.