Not to diminish the affect this has on people lives, but GM has been offering buyouts, incentive packages and laying off contractors for 6 years now. In that time period, GM has reduced their salary and contracted staff as GM consolodated operations by about 20k people using a conservatve estimate. The real number is probably closer to 30k.
This time around it was explained to me that employees were rated over the past year and categorized into bins as to when they would be let go. This is not something recent but has been going on.
GM first had to reduce their contract burden, before targeting their direct staff because of potential legal action if the direct staff was targeted. Though that thread still looms, GM is now targeting under performing and non-essential direct staff as well as managers.
I assure you there is still a lot of dead wood at GM. My hope is that GM targets that dead wood.
Strategically targeting mid-level managers should send a needed wake up call to the organization. This is needed. There still is a disconnect between upper management and the front line troops. Some of the stories I hears are appalling.
Whatever actually transpires and the outcome it is happening as I type this.