General Electric says it'll freeze its US pension plan for about 20,000 workers to help clean up the company's beleaguered balance sheet
Years of inattention, low interest rates and shrinking profits have left GE with one of the largest pension shortfalls in Corporate America.GE said it will pre-fund $4 billion to $5 billion of its pension obligations for 2021 and 2022 and offer lump-sum payouts to 100,000 former employees who have not started their monthly payments yet. GE is also freezing supplementary pension benefits for about 700 employees who became executives prior to 2011.
"Returning GE to a position of strength has required us to make several difficult decisions, and today's decision to freeze the pension is no exception," Kevin Cox, chief human resources officer at GE, said in a statement.GE's pension problems are another example of how the company's questionable spending decisions left the company in financial trouble. GE had a pension surplus of nearly $15 billion in 2001, when former CEO Jack Welch was replaced by Jeff Immelt.
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