GM to Lay Off 850 in Van Nuys

General Motors Corp. today announced the indefinite layoffs this spring of about 850 employees at its assembly plant in Van Nuys as the auto maker fights excess capacity and dwindling demand.

GM spokeswoman Kathy Tanner said that effective April 2, production at the Van Nuys plant will be halved to one shift from two. Currently, there are 3,200 employees at the plant.

The Van Nuys plant is the sole source of Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird cars.

GM officials also said the Van Nuys plant and its Oklahoma City car facility, along with truck plants in Baltimore; Detroit; Pontiac, Mich.; Shreveport, La., and Lordstown, Ohio, will be shut down next week. Those temporary layoffs will affect about 17,300 workers, the officials said.

The Van Nuys layoffs, combined with indefinite layoffs of 500 people at a Ford Motor Co. plant in Lorain, Ohio, will put the number of auto workers on indefinite layoff at about 2,300 by early April.

Car and truck sales have been hammered by the recession and a slump in consumer confidence because of the Persian Gulf War. The 14.1 million cars and trucks sold last year was 5% below 1989’s level, and executives have forecast another 5% drop this year.

For more than a year, GM, Ford and Chrysler Corp. have been wrestling with matching manufacturing capacity to consumer demand. Until now, they’ve chosen to tweak their production through temporary plant closings.

The indefinite layoffs signal deepening concern over an imbalance in production and sales.