Thanks to record North American profits, the Detroit automakers plan to hand out checks totaling more than $750 million to about 122,000 workers, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. In Michigan alone, the checks will contribute $350 million to the economy and generate 3,500 jobs, said Donald Grimes, a senior research specialist at the University of Michigan, who studies labor and the economy. GM earned $5.48 billion in North America in the first nine months of last year and may have made $1.17 billion before interest and taxes in the fourth quarter, the average of four analysts' estimates. That would suggest a profit-sharing payment of $6,600. While that would be shy of the record, it is a sizeable sum given U.S. auto sales were 15 percent below 1999 levels, Dziczek said.
