A strike by auto workers against General Motors (GM) is expected to cut pretax earnings by $800 million this year and another $200 million per week after that, the Associated Press reports.
Those figures include only factories that are on strike now, with less than a third of the company’s workforce on the picket lines; if more plants are added by the United Auto Workers union, the losses could pile up further.
GM today posted net income of more than $3 billion from July–September, down 7% from the same period last year due to lost production from the strike and increased warranty costs. The company also withdrew its previous full-year pretax earnings estimates, citing uncertainty over the length of the strike and how many factories would be shut down.
Excluding one-time items, however, GM said it made $2.28 per share, handily beating Wall Street estimates of $1.87. Revenue of $44.13 billion rose 5.4% and also exceeded estimates of $42.48 billion. That sent shares up 1.2% before the opening bell this morning.
Another $600 million in strike losses are predicted from October–December.
GM is sticking with plans to increase manufacturing capacity to 1 million EVs per year in North America by the end of 2025, but earlier guidance of building 400,000 EVs in North America through the middle of next year have been scrapped.
