GM to cut 47,000 jobs, begs for cash

Huge job cuts: General Motors chairman Rick Wagoner at a press conference today (AFP: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Holden's US parent company General Motors says it will cut 47,000 jobs - 26,000 of them outside the United States - as part of a massive restructuring plan this year.

GM says it may need another $US30 billion ($47 billion) in government aid - more than doubling its original aid - and will run out of cash as soon as March without new federal funding.

The request for additional aid from the top US carmaker was made in a restructuring plan submitted to the US Treasury this morning.

America's number three carmaker Chrysler requested an additional $US5 billion in government aid, saying it expected the brutal downturn in the US market to run another three years.

GM also said it had not reached deals with bondholders and its major union to reduce some $US47 billion in debt but would work to reach those agreements by the end of March.

The carmaker said it would close five plants in the US and cut its American workforce by another 20,000 jobs by 2012, with most of those reductions coming earlier.

GM has been kept afloat since the start of the year with $US13.4 billion in loans from the US Treasury.

Its expanded aid request for up to $US30 billion includes a $US7.5 billion credit line in the event that the car market remains depressed.

GM chief executive Rick Wagoner says his company is making the necessary adjustments to stave off bankruptcy.

"Bankruptcy would be a highly risky and very costly process, potentially very time consuming, that should only be undertaken as a last resort," he said.

"Our primary efforts continue to be on transforming our business and executing GM's viability plan outside of bankruptcy court."

Critics of the bailout of GM and its smaller rival Chrysler have urged the US Government to consider financing a court-supervised restructuring for the two ailing companies in bankruptcy.

In its restructuring blueprint submitted to the US Treasury, Chrysler said it planned to cut its outstanding debt by $US5 billion and reduce fixed costs by $US700 million in 2009.

Chrysler also outlined plans to shed 100,000 units of capacity and cut 3,000 jobs.

Chrysler, held and run by Cerberus Capital Management, has taken $US4 billion in US Government loans.

The carmaker has seen its US sales fall 55 per cent in January after declining 30 percent in all of 2008.