GM says puts more Brazil workers on paid leave

BRASILIA (Reuters) - U.S. automaker General Motors sent more Brazilian workers on mandatory paid leave, its press office in Brazil said on Friday, as tight credit markets continue to hurt car sales.

The announcement affects 400 out of the nearly 9,000 workers in production at GM's plant in Sao Jose dos Campos in Sao Paulo state, the press office said.

"(It gives) continuity to the measures announced previously which aim to adjust production ..." the press office said.

Cash-strapped GM said last week it is approaching the minimum level of liquidity to run its operations and could run out of cash by early next year.

"This probably won't be the last paid leave announced by the company," the director of Sao Jose dos Campos' metalworkers union, Vivaldo Moreira Araujo, said in the statement.

Brazil's auto industry has struggled recently as global credit markets dried up, pushing the government to extend credit lines to the sector to help ease liquidity problems.

New automobile sales in Brazil fell by 11 percent in October, the national automakers' association Anfavea said earlier this month.

Italian auto maker Fiat SpA said on Thursday it will give about 3,000 workers at a Brazil plant early holidays this month.

(Reporting by Ana Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Bernard Orr)