Ford cuts 3,800 jobs in Germany and Britain in electric vehicle switch

Ford cuts 3,800 jobs in Germany and Britain in electric vehicle switch

 Ford is shifting its model lineup in Europe to battery-only by 2035.

Ford will dismiss some 11% of its workforce in Europe in the latest sign of industrial disruption caused by the automotive sector’s shift to electric vehicles.

Of the total 3,800 jobs to go, workers in Germany and in Britain will be hardest-hit with about 2,300 and 1,300 positions to be eliminated respectively over the next three years, Ford has said.

Germany’s IG Metall last month estimated around 3,200 people would lose their jobs.

“Paving the way to a sustainably profitable future for Ford in Europe requires broad-based actions and changes in the way we develop, build and sell Ford vehicles,” Martin Sander, general manager of Ford’s electric-vehicle business in Europe, said.

“This will impact the organisational structure, talent, and skills we will need in the future,” Mr Sander said. 

Electric cars

 Ford is shifting its model lineup in Europe to battery-only by 2035 and has previously said that the reduced complexity of electric cars would lead to smaller product-development teams. 

The company is also trimming jobs in the US as chief executive Jim Farley targets more than $3bn in annualised savings while investing more than $50bn in electric vehicles through 2026. 

The company, with about 173,000 employees globally, had some 35,000 positions in Europe as of the end of last year, with Cologne its biggest plant with some 14,000 workers. 

In Britain, the company has some 7,000 direct employees, making diesel engines at Dagenham and transmissions at the Halewood facility. 

It also has an engineering centre at Dunton in Essex. The company intends to make the reductions through voluntary agreements, it said. 

The US manufacturer’s confirmation of further cuts at its European business add to a lengthy period of decline in the region.

Plant closures

Years of restructuring have seen the sale or closure of a number of factories amid broad job cuts. 

Its passenger car market share last year was 4.4% with sales totaling just over 510,000 cars, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. 

Next in line is Ford’s plant at Saarlouis in Germany, where 4,600 workers make Focus compact cars. 

The carmaker will cease making the model by 2025 with no plans to produce other vehicles there after that. 

The company is in talks with potential buyers of the plant, including China’s BYD, according to people familiar with the matter. 

In 2018, Ford made the radical decision to move away from being a full-line car maker, shrinking its passenger-car lineup down only to higher-margin performance models. 

To foot what would be a massive bill to develop electric vehicles that work like rolling connected devices, Ford needed to concentrate resources on the SUVs and trucks that actually make money. This transformation has taken longer to play out in Europe.

 Bloomberg

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