AUTO
GM to add or keep 4,000 jobs in U.S.
TOLEDO, Ohio — General Motors said Tuesday that it will add 4,000 jobs in the U.S. by hiring new employees or calling back furloughed workers over the next year and a half.
It’s the latest sign that the company and U.S. car industry are recovering from a sales slump and bankruptcies.
GM will spend $2 billion at 17 plants in eight states to create the new work. Most of the investment will be in the Midwest.
It’s not clear how many of the positions will be new ones. Many will be existing jobs retained with the introduction of new cars and trucks. The automaker will announce over the next few months which plants are getting new investments.
GM spokeswoman Kimberly Carpenter said the company has about 1,300 laid off workers waiting to be recalled in the U.S. GM expects to recall all of them by the end of the year and already is adding workers at factories in Flint, Mich., Orion Township, Mich., and Delta Township, Mich., near Lansing, she said.
SEC
Chief: New stock rules must protect investors
The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday said the agency is open to easing rules for private companies that issue stock. But it must first weigh the benefits of those changes against a potential rise in fraudulent stock offerings.
Private companies can keep their finances secret if they have fewer than 500 shareholders. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said the agency is trying to see if it makes sense to raise the threshold. A change would make it easier for Facebook, Twitter and others to raise money without meeting the reporting requirements for public companies.
Miss Schapiro said she’s sympathetic to businesses’ complaint that the limit restricts their ability to raise capital. But she and her staff said looser requirements could also lead to more cases of phony companies scamming investors.
AIRLINES
Fewer flights on-time, cancellations down in March
NEW YORK — Better weather helped airlines avoid long ground delays in March, marking the fourth month out of the last six in which no U.S. planes were stuck on the ground for more than three hours, the government said Tuesday.
Department of Transportation data showed that despite the lack of long delays, fewer flights were on time than a year ago. The country’s 16 largest airlines had a combined on-time arrival rate of 79.2 percent in March, down from 80 percent last March. In February, when massive snowstorms led to thousands of delays and cancellations, the on-time rate was 74.5 percent. Hawaiian Airlines once again clinched the top spot with the most flights on time, followed by United. JetBlue came in last.
There were fewer cancellations in March than a year earlier. And the 1.3 percent rate of cancellations compares with 4.9 percent in February - one of the highest on record. The rate in March 2010 was 1.5 percent.
GREECE
Europeans: Greece may need and get more aid soon
BRUSSELS — Eurozone nations will likely offer Greece more support soon, but any new help will come in exchange for further austerity and reform measures, European officials said Tuesday.
A year after being granted $158 billion in rescue loans in return for a radical overhaul of its economy, Greece remains struck in recession and looks unlikely to be able to stand on its own feet again by 2013, when the current bailout program runs out.
To give Greece some breathing space, eurozone nations are debating additional support measures to keep the country from having to default on part of its massive debt - a step that officials warn would rattle banks across Europe and could hurt the continent’s recovery.
The finance ministers of the 17 eurozone countries may make a broad announcement on potential new aid measures after their meeting in Brussels on Monday, said an official from a eurozone country.
OBITUARY
Robert Stempel, ex-GM CEO, dies
NEW YORK — Former General Motors Co. CEO Robert Stempel, an engineer who led the development of the catalytic converter but was ousted in a boardroom coup, died Saturday in Florida. He was 77.
During his three decades at the company, Mr. Stempel helped to develop many of the fuel-efficient and pollution-control technologies still in use today including front-wheel-drive cars, the catalytic converter, and even battery-powered cars.
But Mr. Stempel’s accomplishments as an engineer were overshadowed by his short tenure at the top of the company.
He and his management team were forced out after GM’S North American operations lost billions of dollars. While he wasn’t blamed for all the losses, Mr. Stempel and his team were seen as moving too slowly to fix the company’s problems.
He joined GM in 1958, and one of his first assignments was designing a wheel. In 1966, he worked on the Oldsmobile Toronado, the first American front-wheel-drive car in nearly three decades.
From wire dispatches and staff reports
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