Germany in particular
It was already in the air, now the high word is out: Ford is going through its European workforce with a broom. 3,800 jobs will disappear, most of them in Germany.
For a while it looked like it would be 1,000 jobs, but Ford is going to cut no fewer than 3,800 jobs in Europe over the next three years. Of these, 2,300 disappear in Germany and another 1,300 in the United Kingdom. The remaining 200 jobs will be cut in other countries. These are mainly technical and administrative jobs. According to Ford, the job cuts are related to the transition to electric cars. They have fewer parts, so there is less work to develop parts.
But the need to save costs also plays a role. Ford wants to reduce the workforce mainly through voluntary severance schemes. In recent years, Ford has already become much smaller in Europe. The company decided to offer far fewer different cars here and in 2019 also cut through 12,000 functions. Then more than 5,000 jobs disappeared in Germany and there were also significant cuts in Russia, France and the United Kingdom.
Future Ford Europe
There are still 3,400 engineers left at Ford in Europe. They will further develop the technology of their American colleagues and adapt it to European requirements. Ford also benefits from a partnership with Volkswagen, which allows it to release two electric models that it did not have to develop from the ground up in terms of technology. One of those models surfaced earlier this week. Ford is now also announcing that the first electric Ford from Europe will be unveiled next spring, probably that SUV on VW’s MEB platform.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl