GM’s self-driving unit Cruise cuts 24% of workforce
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The news: General Motors’ self-driving business, Cruise, announced it will lay off almost a quarter of its workforce in a letter from its CTO published on Thursday.
The numbers: Cruise will cut 24% of its 3,800 head count, amounting to approximately 900 staff.
The context: Cruise paused its operations in October when regulators in California revoked the company’s self-driving permit. The decision followed an incident where a woman was severely injured after being struck and dragged by a Cruise self-driving car.
Thursday’s announcement explains that as part of its new operating plans, the company will have a "less immediate need" for field, commercial operations and corporate staffing. Those affected by the cuts will largely be from outside of the engineering department, however tech staff will likely be impacted. Departing staff will receive approximately 16 weeks of pay.
What they said: Mo Elshenawy, president and CTO of Cruise, said: “As a result of our decision to slow down commercialization, we are restructuring to focus on delivering the improvements to our tech and vehicle performance that will build trust in our AVs. Many of you will be impacted because we aren’t commercializing as quickly, and therefore don’t need support in certain cities or facilities. In other cases, we restructured teams based on the work we’re prioritizing. We didn’t take any of these decisions lightly, though I know that isn’t much of a consolation if you’re someone affected by the actions we are taking today.”
The source: Cruise
