>> what the company believes will be a continued shift from cars to crossovers and trucks.

This part hints (to me anyway) that they may have waited for the election. Trump seems to be a fan of fossil fuels, so that would suggest cheap oil will be around for a while and people will be more willing to buy bigger vehicles. The article also points out that these vehicles are not selling well enough to support 3 shifts, so it probably has very little to do with union concerns. I suspect it's just a straight business decision based on a market forecast which was solidified by the election. They probably waited a bit for the election to feed that into the forecast.

From GM, anyway.

I see plenty of small cars around, but they're the Prius, Civic, Accord, Corolla, Camry, Fit, Golf, and Mazda3.

Yes, looks like they tried not to sway the vote. But yeah, I'm sure this isn't the first layoff in these states anyway, which is probably why they went Trump.

I wonder if there will be more layoffs and an offshoring scramble in the lead up to Trump taking office for fear of his administration enacting penalties, etc.

> But yeah, I'm sure this isn't the first layoff in these states anyway

It certainly isn't, and this won't be the last.

There is no doubt this was timed and the democrats asked GM to sit on this news until after the election.

Regardless of conspiracy theories, it was definitely the responsible thing to do to wait.

Why?

Shouldn't voters have access to all relevant economic information prior to an election?