One of the most dramatic corporate downsizings in America’s history is set to occur. Next Monday, Rick Wagoner, chief executive of General Motors, is expected to announce that one quarter, or 30,000, of its blue-collar workers have decided to take gm’s offered early retirement and severance packages.

The mass buy-outs are “really historic,” said Gary Chaison, an industrial relations professor at Massachusetts’ Clark University. Chaison says the mass attrition marks “the end of the good jobs” in the auto industry.

Almost all will be unemployed by year end, achieving in a few months what gm thought would take more than two years to accomplish.

Despite the massive cost of the buy-outs, ranging from $35,000 to $140,000 each depending on the employee’s length of service, gm shareholders seem to think it will help bring the company back to profitability—reflected in gm’s recently soaring share price, which has risen a third since the company announced the accelerated employee reductions.

Delphi, the former gm parts manufacturing subsidiary, is expected to announce 9,000 of its 31,000 unionized workers have accepted similar buy-outs, while 10,000 workers from Ford have also taken packages.

For almost three quarters of a century, gm has been the world’s number-one vehicle manufacturer. In recent years, however, because of slower sales and rising costs, gm has suffered multi-billion dollar deficits. gm’s falling share of the car and light truck market, coupled with its projected factory and vehicle (1 million) production cuts, suggests gm’s days at number one may soon be over.

The atrophying auto industry is just one example of the decline in American industrial might over the past two decades. Many expect the downward trend to continue. Dave Kassel of the outsourcing firm International Smart Sourcing says that with alternatives like China, expecting U.S. industrial manufacturers to dominate in the decades to come is foolhardy. He predicts that “in a decade, Detroit is going to be a fraction of what it is today.”

Could gm’s layoffs be the beginning of the end for the American auto industry—or worse, a sign of a more rapid decline of American manufacturing? For more exploration of this topic, read our article “The Death of American Manufacturing.”