General Motors said yesterday that it will cut the third shift at its Lansing Delta Township manufacturing facility in Michigan. The plant builds the Saturn Outlook, GMC Acadia, and Buick Enclave. The change will become effective after the Thanksgiving holiday when the plant begins to operate only on two shifts.

A General Motors spokesman told the Detroit Free Press that about 1,000 workers at the facility would be impacted by the move. Half of the laid-off workers will reportedly be temporary employees; the rest would be full-time GM employees. "We said right from the very beginning that the third shift was based on market demand," GM spokesman Tom Wickham told the newspaper. "We had to get enough product out there, and the third shift was added because we were bringing out the Buick Enclave and had two other products going well."

The Lansing State Journal published some interesting statistics about the plant today:

• 3,900 = number of workers at the GM Lansing Delta Township plant
  
• 1,000 = number of GM workers who could be laid off after Thanksgiving
  
• $29 = average hourly wage of a GM production worker
  
• 12,762 = number of Lansing Delta Township-made vehicles sold in September

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Source: Detroit Free Press, Lansing State Journal