Opel to cut 1,000 jobs, but Opel-Exec to deny the report

YEREVAN, September 13. /ARKA/. General Motors Co.'s European unit Adam Opel wants to cut 1,000 of 3,300 administration jobs at its Ruesselsheim, Germany, headquarters, according to a preview of an article in Thursday's edition of Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung that cites two supervisory board members who didn't want to be named, MarketWatch agency reports.

An Opel spokesman said the company aims to lower costs, and personnel costs are a part of that. "We are currently in talks with employee and IG Metall union representatives," the spokesman said, but didn't want to comment on specifics. 

GM is implementing a range of measures aimed at stemming financial losses at its European operations. 

The article also said GM wanted to avoid forced redundancies, and instead reduce jobs through a government subsidized program whereby employees born between 1955 and 1957 can reduce their working hours to 80%. Another way would be to offer voluntary redundancies, the newspaper article added. 

However, on the same day the works council chief at General Motors Co.'s European unit Adam Opel Wednesday denied a report that 1,000 administration jobs would be cut at the Ruesselsheim headquarters.

"We negotiated shorter working hours also in the administration areas, in addition to shorter working hours in production, to further reduce costs and balance out the decrease in volume," Mr. Schaefer-Klug told Dow Jones Newswires. -0-