In late 2008, Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli said his company employed 55,000, but that figure is worldwide.At least 8,500 of those are Canadian and 5000 are employed in Mexico, so let’s presume for the sake of argument that Chrysler employs 41,500 Americans.
So far, the U.S. government provided $8 billion in loans to Chrysler that are now forgiven, coming out to a comparatively miserly $192,771.08 per employee. However, the administration is willing to provide an additional $6 billion in loans to the new Chrysler that will emerge from bankruptcy. Add that to the total, and it comes out to $337,346.39 per employee.
Chrysler Financial received $1.5 billion in TARP funds; they employ “about 4,000″ people. Their assistance comes out to a $375,000 per employee.
UPDATE: A Chrysler Financial spokesperson e-mails in to state, “Chrysler Financial considers this an investment in consumer receivables that are in a securitization (asset-backed securities) type facility. The cash is never commingled with our balance sheet and we have no access to use it for anything other than to finance new consumer retail loans.”
Of course, that’s not the point of what was written above; simply to point out that the taxpayer money provided in order to keep the company viable and to ultimately save jobs comes out to an enormous cost for each job saved.