A robot car of the General Motors subsidiary Cruise is on a test drive.
Andrej Sokolow | picture alliance | Getty Images
General Motors is laying off roughly half of its employees who remain at its discontinued Cruise robotaxi business.
The plans come two months after GM said it would no longer fund Cruise after spending more than $10 billion on the robotaxi unit since acquiring it in 2016.
“Today, Cruise shared the difficult decision to part ways with approximately 50% of its workforce,” Cruise said in an emailed statement. “We are grateful for their passion and contributions to help us reach this stage, and our focus is on supporting them into their next chapter with severance packages and career support.”
About 88% of remaining employees are in engineering or related roles, according to the company.
Layoffs were expected at Cruise, however executives previously declined to speculate on the amount. The job cuts were announced in conjunction with the Detroit automaker announcing the completion of Cruise becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary within GM.
Cruise had nearly 2,300 employees as of the end of last year.
“While not an easy decision, we are focused on combining efforts with General Motors to accelerate autonomy at scale on personal autonomous vehicles,” Cruise said.
GM cited the increasingly competitive robotaxi market, capital allocation priorities and the considerable time and resources necessary to grow the business as reasons for its decision.
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