GM Generali

NEW DELHI (AFP)--U.S. carmaker General Motors Corp. (GM) said Thursday it wouldn't sack any of its 4,000 Indian employees as part of its restructuring plan submitted to the U.S. government in exchange for a huge loan, a report said.

"We don't have any plan to lay off employees in India," GM India President and Managing Director Karl Slym told reporters in western Maharashtra state, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

Slym's statement came two days after GM said it would cut 10,000 white-collar jobs worldwide in 2009 in a bid to reduce its global salaried workforce to about 63,000.

GM, along with Ford Motor Co. (F) and Chrysler LLC, has been battered by falling auto sales amid a deepening U.S. recession.

The cash-strapped company has received $9.4 billion from the U.S. Treasury to avert collapse, including $5.4 billion on Jan. 21.

Under the bailout agreement with the government, GM must submit a preliminary viability plan to the U.S. Treasury by Feb. 17. The final plan is due March 31.

GM's two manufacturing plants in India are in Halol in western Gujarat state and in Talegaon in Maharashtra.