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GM Canada plant recalls 600 laid-off employees

Several hundred laid-off employees were heading back to work Monday night at the General Motors assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont..

Several hundred laid-off employees were heading back to work Monday night at the General Motors assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont..

The company announced in March that it would recall 600 workers to the plant to meet high demand for the Chevrolet Equinox and the GMC Terrain, crossovers that are popular for combining the utility of SUVs with the fuel efficiency of smaller vehicles.

Sales of the Equinox are up 72 per cent in Canada and 77 per cent in the U.S. so far this year. The Oshawa plant exports about 85 per cent of its production south of the border.

The vehicles are currently produced at GM’s plant in Ingersoll, Ont., but the company is doing some of the finishing work at its main manufacturing location in Oshawa, which is now operating on three shifts.

“The successful implementation of these . . . capacity increases reflects the new agility and customer focus that drives every business decision we make,” Kevin Williams, president of GM Canada, said in a news release.

Industry Minister Tony Clement said he welcomed the announcement.

“I would like to congratulate GM Canada because this is a good day for those 600 men and women who get to go back to work, and it signals that the recovery of the automotive industry is gaining momentum,” he said in an emailed statement.

General Motors and its Canadian subsidiary were nearly felled last year by the economic downturn, which compounded years of losses at the automaker. It survived by filing for bankruptcy protection in the United States and restructuring its operations with the help of billions of dollars in aid from governments both in Canada and the United States.

Sagging demand for larger, gas-guzzling vehicles hit General Motors particularly hard, costing thousands of jobs across North America. GM Canada shed about 2,600 jobs with the closure of a truck plant in Oshawa last year. It also shut down a transmission plant in the southwestern Ontario city of Windsor this year, affecting more than 1,000 workers.

GM Canada currently employs more than 9,000 people at two assembly plants and two parts plants in southern Ontario.