The wave of mass layoffs sweeping the United States in 2025 is set to continue into the new year, with workers across manufacturing, logistics, and technology facing mounting uncertainty. Among the hardest hit is General Motors’ Factory Zero assembly plant in Detroit, where more than 1,100 workers have been permanently laid off and only one shift is scheduled to return when production resumes on January 5.
Factory Zero, once promoted by GM as the flagship of its “electric vehicle future,” is now operating at roughly half capacity less than five years after its high-profile reopening. The cutbacks are part of a broader retrenchment by the automaker, which has also placed more than 2,000 workers on temporary or indefinite layoff at its Ultium Cells battery joint ventures in Ohio and Tennessee, as per WSWS.
A longtime Factory Zero worker told the World Socialist Web Site, “As of right now, the layoffs have begun. On January 5, the first shift returns to our plant, and the second shift is on indefinite layoff.” Having worked at seven GM plants over two decades, including shuttered facilities in Lordstown, Ohio, and Warren, Michigan, the worker warned of deeper cuts ahead.
“I’ve seen it done many times. I tell people that all the time. It is nothing for GM to shut these doors and gut this entire plant and be out and gone.” Similar upheaval is unfolding at Ford Motor Company, which has canceled production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning and shut down the Blue Origin SK battery joint venture in Kentucky.
The worker described a sense of free fall among Factory Zero employees, abandoned by both the corporation and the United Auto Workers union.
We’re all backed into a corner right now and we got no help from the UAW. That’s really how it feels out on the plant floor. We work hard to make these companies money, and we get the short end of the stick every time. We don’t even know where our safety net is anymore. We don’t even know what to grab on to. It’s like we’re just harshly waiting to hit that bottom.
If you ask a union representative about it, immediately you’re almost blacklisted. You’re looked down upon as the black sheep because you’re trying to fight the agenda that is being pushed.
When they started the plant back up in 2021 up until the last year, we worked mandatory six days a week, 10 hours a day, almost 12 hours a day. The entire year, almost seven days a week. Some departments, seven days a week, 12 hours a day. When did it ever become healthy for an employee to work this much?
I know a lot of people that are saying, there’s no point in paying union dues because we’re not getting represented properly. They’re not doing anything for us. They’re giving away our skilled trades work. They’re not standing up for us when we run into safety issues, quality issues, or when workers have to purchase our own tools to build the company’s car.
Referring to UAW President Shawn Fain’s embrace of Trump’s tariffs, he added:
The tariffs are not helping. We’re not seeing anything good coming from that. You cut from Canada, you cut from Mexico, and say you’re bringing jobs back. But here we are at the end of 2025 and the biggest layoffs are happening right now. Where was any of that good grace that was promised?
He stressed that the attack on Factory Zero workers is part of a generalized assault on the working class.
It’s not just happening here. If you open your eyes you can see everybody’s dealing with the same problems in the exact same way in every single field. Everybody’s cutting costs, cutting quality, cutting the worker. Everybody’s putting more on the worker for no raise. Inflation is going up.
More than 1,500 workers were informed in mid-December that the company was being dissolved, only months after the $5.8 billion facility began production. Many had relocated or left higher-paying jobs based on assurances of long-term employment.
According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, US employers announced 1.17 million job cuts in 2025, the highest level since 2020. Artificial intelligence alone accounted for nearly 55,000 layoffs, while logistics firms were among the worst affected. United Parcel Service eliminated around 48,000 jobs nationwide and has filed notice of further cuts in Alabama beginning in 2026.
Major reductions have also been announced by Amazon, Verizon, Intel, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Target, and HP, underscoring the scale of the downturn. While initial jobless claims remain relatively low, rising continuing claims and falling consumer confidence point to growing anxiety in a stagnant labor market.
Internationally, similar patterns are emerging, with automakers such as Volkswagen and suppliers like Bosch and ZF announcing tens of thousands of layoffs across Europe. In response, the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees has called for a globally coordinated pushback, arguing that “the corporations are global, the layoffs are global, and the struggle to defend jobs must be global.”
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