Stellantis will lay off 2% of its nonunion U.S. workers across its engineering, software and technology organizations, a company spokesperson confirmed in an email on Friday.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news based on documents it reviewed, said the layoffs would impact around 400 workers. The layoffs will be effective March 31.
Stellantis will provide transition assistance to the employees, including a comprehensive separation package, the company said in a statement emailed to Automotive Dive. The job cuts will help Stellantis improve efficiency and optimize its cost structure.
“As the auto industry continues to face unprecedented uncertainties and heightened competitive pressures around the world, Stellantis continues to make the appropriate structural decisions across the enterprise to improve efficiency and optimize our cost structure," Stellantis said in its statement. “While we understand this is difficult news, these actions will better align resources while preserving the critical skills needed to protect our competitive advantage as we remain laser focused on implementing our EV product offensive and our Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan.”
Stellantis has been aiming to trim expenses over the past year as it pushes toward long-term goals. Its Dare Forward 2030 strategy, for example, aims to have electric passenger vehicles account for 100% of its sales in Europe and 50% in North America by 2030.
As part of its long-term strategy, the company unveiled its new STLA Medium global EV platform last July, which will support a variety of vehicle configurations and body types to reduce production costs and improve scalability. The modular platform allows for multiple EVs to share components in order to reduce production costs.
The March layoffs also come after several headcount reduction measures taken last year.
In April 2023, Reuters reported that Stellantis offered 33,500 U.S. employees voluntary exit packages to cut costs and streamline operations. Then, in November, Stellantis offered buyouts to 6,400 of its 12,700 salaried employees shortly after the automaker struck a new labor agreement with the United Auto Workers union.
