TEXT OF INTERVIEW

Steve Chiotakis: GM workers may find out today how long production will shut down for this summer. The automaker is looking at ways of cutting costs and reducing inventories that just aren’t moving.
Marketplace’s Renita Jablonski joins us now to talk about what GM might do. Renita, what’s on the table here?

Renita Jablonski: Well, what we’re hearing is that the company is considering a production shutdown for up to nine weeks. So this two month shutdown would affect the majority of GM’s factories. What could be spared are those factories making some of the more popular cars and trucks. This would happen around the normal two-week shutdown that happens every year in July. That shutdown happens when the changes are being made to switch from one model year to the next.

Chiotakis: Yeah, and so else who is affected by all of this?

Jablonski: Well there’s concern out there from analyst and dealers that think, OK, if you go for a nine-week shutdown, this could actually scare away from potential car buyers, you know, thinking, what’s going on there, why are they having to shutdown for so long? And there’s also concern that it could be pretty hurtful to a lot of the auto-parts suppliers that are already in trouble because of the dismal sales.

Chiotakis: All right, Marketplace’s Renita Jablonski. Thanks.

Jablonski: No problem.