To think younger, you have to be younger – or at least that’s what General Motors is hoping. Eager to attract younger consumers to GM showrooms, the automaker is beginning to search for younger engineers to help revitalize North American and European operations.
According to Automotive News, GM suffers from an age gap when it comes to engineering operations. This lack of personnel in their 20s and 30s is seen as significant disadvantage as engineers aged 50 and older could be missing out on how younger car buyers use and interact with the automaker’s products.
GM’s recent financial woes and restructuring has stunted hiring in the engineering department. While the automaker attests that they still possess incredible talent, they want to look toward the future and are eager to hire engineers that share more in common with their target consumers. They also want to have fresh talent in place when older generations of GM engineers begin to retire.
“We’ve still got a lot of talent, but we don’t have young people,” says Rick Spina, vehicle line executive for GM’s full-sized trucks. “You’ve got a chunk of the U.S. population, the world population, that we’re not well-represented in. Is that going to hurt us long term? Absolutely.”
As GM embarks on a more optimistic year, the days of sweeping layoffs and cuts seem to be behind them. In mid-January, the automaker started hiring both college graduates and experienced engineers to fill-in important roles involving green technologies and to bolster hybrid and electric vehicle teams. Although the exact target of new hires is not known, this is nonetheless a positive sign for GM. Armed with fresh ideas and fresh perspectives, GM’s future is already looking much brighter.
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