Chrysler announces bonuses for American and Canadian workers

Chrysler has announced that they will be issuing performance bonuses for many American and Canadian employees with hourly workers getting around $750 as soon as next week.

Chrysler announced earlier today that they lost around $652 million in 2010 but the automaker saw an operating profit of $763 million throughout the year. Generally, you would assume that a company so far in “the red” wouldn’t be handing out bonuses but to acknowledge the efforts put in by company employees as the brands under the corporate umbrella rolled out a huge lineup of new or revised models for 2011. The bonuses are intended to recognize the hard work by the employees at many levels even though the company as a whole lost money in 2010.

Chrysler will be issuing around $750 bonus to hourly workers in the US and Canada and while they will also be giving a bonus to salaried workers, Chrysler representatives have not stated the exact amount to be sent to non-hourly workers. The $750 bonus paid to hourly workers could be more or less, depending on given variables, presumably things like tenure with the company and their normal pay rates relative to other employees. Roughly 22,000 American employees and another 7,600 in Canada are eligible for the 2010 performance bonus.

According to the Detroit Free Press, all salaried employees shy of the “top 50 executives” will also receive performance bonuses for 2010 but since the company is still deeply in debt to the US and Canadian government, the bonus for salary-level employees will be decided at a later date. There is no indication as to whether or not the company will make those dollar amounts public information. Those top executives are not slated to receive this bonus because the government has the power to restrict how much the big-wigs make due to the “government bailout”. Around 10,000 American workers and 750 from Canada stand to benefit from the 2010 performance bonus for salaried workers.

Chrysler has stated that these bonuses will be paid out next week and if that is the case, it is only a matter of time before one of the salaried workers lets someone know just how much he or she received for their 2010 bonus in a year where the company lost over a half-billion dollars.

Source: The Detroit Free Press