General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. are continuing to struggle with keeping workers on the job as coronavirus cases surge nationwide, forcing the auto-making giants to cut shifts, hire new workers and transfer others to fill vacant roles, the Wall Street Journal reported. The absences are hampering efforts to recover from the economic havoc wreaked by the pandemic and return to normal production levels after a nearly two-month shutdown this spring. A GM assembly plant in Wentzville, Mo., that has been running three shifts to restock the company’s depleted supply of midsize pickups is cutting one of the shifts to better cope with worker absences, the company said. The plant, normally staffed with around 3,800 hourly workers split across the three shifts, will temporarily eliminate the third one next week. Instead, the company will try to use workers from that shift to fill absences along the assembly line in the first two, the company said. Ford also has been contending with an increase in absences among the 12,500 or so hourly workers split across its two assembly plants in Louisville, Ky., according to the company.
