On Tuesday, January 10, General Motors announced the lay off of 10,000 salaried workers worldwide in 2009 and pay reductions of as much as 10 percent for the remainder of the workforce.

A week earlier GM tendered more offers for buyouts and early retirement packages to hourly workers after concluding 5,100 buyout agreements with salaried workers three months earlier.

The newly announced cuts, however, will not be voluntary due to terms of GM's government loan package that prevent the company from drawing on its over-funded pension fund to pay for such offers.

Tom Wilkinson, spokesman for GM, said, "There may be some opportunities for people to volunteer, but they're essentially involuntary." In the United States, the cuts will effect 3,400 of 29,500 salaried workers by May 1.

Those who are let go will receive severance pay, benefit contributions, and assistance in finding new employment. The severence, however, will be a smaller amount than the workers could have received had they agreed to the earlier buyout offer.

The pay cuts that will take effect May 1 are being characterized as temporary. Executives will see their paychecks dip 10 percent with other employees seeing a drop of 3 to 7 percent. Salaries will be re-evaluated at year's end.

In 2008 GM saw an 11 percent decline in its global sales. As the company continues to struggle with restructuring, it has said as many as 31,500 hourly and salaried positions must be eliminated.