OREANDA-NEWS. St. Petersburg General Motors plant will hold the third wave of layoffs, said the chairman of the Committee on Industrial Policy and Innovation of St. Petersburg, Maxim Meyksin.

"The company warned about layoffs that will concern office workers, but the total number of downsizing it did not announce," - he said, adding that the third wave will be similar to the first two waves, when the workers agreed about the dismissal compensation. Earlier, the authorities of St. Petersburg has already assisted in finding employment in other car plants for more than 500 workers that left GM, says the agency "Tass."

Currently, from the St. Petersburg enterprises it was retired 10 thousand people - it is 3% of employment in industry. Overall Mr.Meyksin noted car plants of St. Petersburg employs 350 thousand people and another 700,000 work in related companies.

At the beginning of October of the last year, GM plant in St. Petersburg went to work in one shift. Before the carmaker stopped the employment relationship with 500 workers, by calling these measures as response to the decline of overall market, as well as the weakening of the ruble (some components are imported).

In 2014, the plant declared several times downtime and summer vacations were twice as long as usual. The conveyor will also be suspended from March 23rd to May 15th, 2015, and the idle will be paid to employees in the labor legislation. 

According to experts, this year the capacity of St. Petersburg Company GM is uploaded by about a quarter. St. Petersburg GM plant produces Chevrolet Cruze and Opel Astra, and it also leads SKD Chevrolet TrailBlazer, Cadillac CTS, SRX and ATS. In 2015, the company will assemble SUV Chevrolet Tahoe and Cadillac Escalade of new generation, as well as the Chevrolet Captiva, which was produced before at the facilities of "Avtotor."