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GM Cut 4,400 Contract Jobs In Two Years

DETROIT February 19, 2004; Sharon Silke Carty writing for Dow Jones reported that General Motors Corp. has eliminated more than 4,400 contract jobs in a little more than two years as part of its cost-cutting maneuvers.

Many of those were white-collar design and engineering jobs at the company's Warren Technical Center in Michigan, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press. The cuts have gone largely unreported because they came in small batches of five or 10 jobs at a time, the paper said.

"With contract workers, they come in when they are needed or their skills are needed. But when those needs go away, we reduce the number we need," GM spokesman Kerry Christopher told the paper.

Kerry told Dow Jones that the company had 12,601 contract employees in 2001, and now has just over 7,500.

Some contract work, like design or engineering support, has been transferred to a new GM research lab in Bangalore, India. The company would not say how many jobs were transferred there.