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**Web-Admin** · #1 12-01-2011, 09:00 AM

Filed under: Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Plants/Manufacturing, Chrysler, Ford, GM, UAW/Unions

According to a top researcher, labor costs for salaried employees at Chrysler, Ford and General Motors will surpass those of workers represented by the United Auto Workers for the first time next year. A report in Automotive News says the calculation was performed by the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), and made public at a recent conference.

Sean McAlinden, chief economist for CAR, explained the math like this. The Big Three's 66,000 salaried employees make an average of $122,500, or just over $8 billion in wages. That's a little more than the $7.9 billion that 115,000 hourly workers will take home at roughly $69,000 each.

Until 2009, McAlinden said, hourly employment had a decisive edge in total compensation, but plant closings and a paring down of the blue collar workforce have left salaried employees accounting for about 37 percent of the Big Three's American workers.

Is this just another sign of a shrinking UAW, or something more significant? It's hard to say, but the article hints that salaried workers could be the next targets for cost-cutting: "McAlinden said a recent pledge by General Motors CEO Dan Akerson to cut vehicle platforms by half and consolidate advertising with fewer agencies recognized that salaried labor costs are mounting."White collar salaries to overtake UAW labor costs next year originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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**Hotshot** · #2 12-01-2011, 10:44 AM

The car manufacturers are still revamping their system. They have to be lean and mean to stay on top of their game. Labor costs and the benefits packages offered to the workers are their downfall and should be been kept in check all those years ago instead of biting them in the rear end like it did.