U.S. automotive giant General Motors aims to slash 9,500 jobs at its German subsidiary Opel, but payroll cuts will come without compulsory redundancies, Opel's top workers representative said Thursday. Employee representatives and management had been negotiating the reduction since GM in mid-October announced its intention to slash its European workforce by 12,000, with most of the cuts coming in Germany. Klaus Franz, head of the Opel works council for Germany, told a meeting of workers at the main production site in Ruesselsheim that the brunt of the job reductions, totalling 3,600, would be at the factory in the Ruhr industrial city of Bochum. "This is the deepest cut in the post-war period," Franz said about GM's payroll cut plans aimed at lowering costs by some 500 million euros (670 million dollars) by 2006 at its red ink-ridden European operations. Most of the employees losing their jobs will be absorbed by so- called "transfer companies" where workers will receive further job training to boost their skills. Others will be offered severance packages. The payroll cuts will also involve offering part-time work arrangements for older employees. Franz said GM was to spend 1 billion dollars (750 million euros) for the job reduction plans at Opel. When GM announced the cuts, most of the job cuts were to be at Opel, but reductions were also planned at the company's Vauxhall unit in Britain and at Saab in Sweden. ----
