17,300 salaried employees and an undesclosed number of contract workers have today to decide should I stay or should I go. Chrysler/Cerberus is planning on a 25% reduction which equals about 5000 employees. Buyouts of up to $75,000 and a $25,000 voucher for a Chrysler vehicle are being offered. Today would be the last day of work for employees that take the deal and will be off the books on Nov. 30, 2008.

 

Man, what a bad situation

 

With Congress forcing Cerberus to actually create a plan for Chrysler's future (beyond dissolving it or selling it to someone else) and Nardelli being the only auto CEO to say he'd be willing to accept $1 annual salary in order for Chrysler to gain loans, makes me believe at least there is hope for Chrysler (however thin).

If you had asked me about Chrysler before they almost merged with GM, I'd say Chrysler has a strong future. Today, I'm not as sure. I'm begining to think that Cerberus will start doing the same thing that Daimler did, start choking off new products.

Chrysler's future (at least pre-October) was based on partnerships with other companies (Nissan, Volkswagen, GM, and Chery) and was a solid plan though it diluted Chrysler's engineering department though not design.

All said, if I was a Chrysler engineer, I think it'd be wise to take the buyout.

 

It has to be a tough decision. Take the buyout and try to find a job in Michigan, which has close to 10% unemployment, or relocate knowing your house is worth about half of what it was during the housing peak. I think I would still take the money and run.

 

The Detroit News reports that Chrysler layoffs unlikely. By Alisa Priddle.
Overwhelming response by Chrysler LLC salaried workers taking buyout packages may be enough to avoid further layoffs.
"We're fairly certain we've achieved our target and won't have to do any involuntary layoffs for the end of the year," spokeswoman Lori McTavish said Friday.
Thousands of white-collar workers chose to take packages and walked out the door for the last time Wednesday night. And while most will drop off the payroll as of Nov. 30, the high take rate has forced some departments to offer a temporary extension to select full-time and contract employees to get through the transitional month of December. A new restructured personnel plan is to go into effect in the new year.

 

It's interesting to see that they are offering a buyout to contract workers, usually they just let them go

 

I'd take the money and run.

75k should equal about a years worth of salary for most of them, I'm sure they can find another job (outside of Michigan) within that time.