Ford to Cut 1 in 9 Jobs in Europe in Electric Revamp

BERLIN—Ford One in nine jobs to be eliminated EuropeThe automaker announced Tuesday that it had eliminated 3,800 positions in product development and administration in an effort to reduce costs and increase engineering expertise in the United States.

American carmaker is the European leader in commercial vans. However, it has had trouble making strong profits from passenger cars and warned this month that it will be. “very aggressive” This year, we will be lowering manufacturing and supply chain costs.

Jim Farley, CEO of the company, repeatedly stated that electric vehicle (EV), production would require less labor to be competitive. He also highlighted significant cost reductions.

“There is significantly less work to be done on drivetrains moving out of combustion engines. We are moving into a world with less global platforms where less engineering work is necessary. This is why we have to make the adjustments,” Martin Sander, European passenger EV chief, stated Tuesday.

Around 2,300 jobs will go at Ford’s Cologne and Aachen sites in Germany, 1,300 in the UK, and 200 in the rest of Europe, the company said, adding it intended to achieve the reductions through voluntary programs.

Unions were disappointed to hear this news as they had stated in January that the worst-case scenario would be 2,500. job cuts Europe’s product development, and 700 in administration.

The carmaker did not agree to any compulsory redundancies at its Cologne and Aachen locations before 2032. This provided some relief for workers, Benjamin Gruschka, chair of the works council, said in a press conference.

“Workers know that the reduced model palette in coming years means fewer jobs. The exclusion of operational redundancies provides safety—we are not kicking anyone out,” Gruschka stated.

Ford will retain approximately 3,400 engineers from the region, who will adapt core technology developed by their U.S. counterparts to European customers. Martin Sander, European passenger electric chief and head Ford Germany said during a press conference.

Cuts in the UK, which amount to one in five of the workforce there, will be mostly at the carmaker’s research center in Dunton, southeast England.

Germany has cut around 12 per cent of its workforce.

The company also announced Monday that it will invest $3.5B in a Michigan battery factory, creating 2,500 new jobs.

Ford’s European staff last saw a wave of job cuts in 2019 and 2020 as the carmaker pursued a 6 percent operating margin in the region, a goal thrown off course by the pandemic, with pretax profit margins in Europe in the first nine months of 2022 at just 2.2 percent of sales.