General Motors likely to invest $1bn across US factories

General Motors is expected to announce this week that it plans to invest at least $1bn (£828bn) across several factories in the US.

The announcement can come as early as Tuesday (17 January). According to unnamed sources,
American automaker's investment in the country could generate over 1,000 jobs.

The person familiar with the situation, however, added that GM might not reveal the location of factories that would benefit from the investment.

This comes ahead of GM's previous plans to cut more than 3,000 jobs across US plants starting this month. It remains unclear if the motor company will still go ahead with its restructuring plans.

Several automakers are facing pressure from President-elect Donald Trump to boost investment and hiring in the US.

While Trump has previously attacked GM for importing cars from Mexico, he has also criticised Ford Motor Company and Toyota for similar moves. The incoming president had even warned Toyota that it could face a big border tax on cars built in Mexico for the US market.

Following this criticism, Ford announced earlier this month that it will cancel plans to build a new $1.6 billion plant in Mexico, and instead invest $700m and add 700 jobs at an existing Michigan factory. In response, Trump had thanked Ford in a speech last week and suggested that GM follows suit. "I hope that General Motors will be following. And I think they will be," Trump had said.

GM general counsel Craig Glidden said on Monday that any investment that would be announced from his company would be because it was planned since a long time. He had added that such announcements will not be made amid any pressure from Trump.

"This is something we've been undertaking for some period of time. It's really getting our story told in a way that is I think complete and fulsome," Glidden was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal.

Glidden had not confirmed any such investment plans. He, however, said that GM had created 25,000 jobs over the last four years, of which 6,000 were at the factory level and the remaining across engineering, information technology and other white-collar positions. He had also added that about 15,000 of these jobs were even shifted from overseas, emphasising that the company was keen on creating jobs in the country.

"There is a bigger story here that relates to employment in the United States," Glidden said before adding that self-driving cars and other new technologies, "will be areas that continue to be centered here in the United States and areas of further employment."