[BRIEF NOTE] General Motors Canada lets us know things are going downhill, sharply

[rfmcdonald]

This afternoon, I posted about geopolitical/military and biological/epidemiological threats to Canada. I may as well post about economic threats now.

General Motors Canada will slash its workforce by more than half by 2014 and close as many as 310 dealerships by the end of next year as part of a broad restructuring plan announced by the company Monday.

The troubled company's Canadian arm will reduce its hourly workforce by 57 per cent, from 10,300 currently to 4,400 over the next five years. The company employed 20,000 Canadians as recently as 2005.

Many of the 5,900 jobs being eliminated under Monday's latest streamlining plans were previously announced and include the closure of a truck plant in Oshawa, Ont., and a transmission plant in Windsor, Ont.

GM Canada spokesman Stew Low estimated that Monday's announcement will affect about 1,500 jobs on top of those already announced.

The announcement didn't surprise Canadian Auto Workers president Ken Lewenza.

"The reality is there's been significant plant closure announcements in Canada that are going to take place within the next couple years, and we're not totally surprised by the numbers although they're a little bit more than we'd anticipated," he said.

At this stage, it might not be inaccurate to say that the Ontario automotive industry is starting undergo the same process that decimated the Newfoundland fisheries back in the early 1990s. What's going to succeed automotive manufacturing, I wonder? and what will happen to the communities, like Windsor and Oshawa and Oakville, which depend so heavily on this industry?