Following comments from CEO Jim Farley regarding the fact that he believes Ford is overstaffed in a number of areas, the automaker proceeded to lay off 3,000 white collar workers last year. However, the company’s EV transition also promises to bring about some job reductions as well, largely due to the fact that assembling those types of vehicles requires less labor than their ICE counterparts. As Ford Authority reported last week, The Blue Oval will be culling around 1,000 jobs from its Cologne Assembly plant – which is being converted to the Cologne Electrification Center in Germany for the production of EVs – but that seems as if it will just be the tip of the iceberg for Ford Europe, according to a new report from Reuters.
This news comes from Katharina von Hebel, vice-chief of the works council at Ford’s German plants, who told the press that Ford Europe plans to cut up to 3,200 jobs at the Cologne plant alone, which currently employs around 14,000 people. Additionally, German union IG Metall said that The Blue Oval also plans to cut thousands of developmental jobs and administrative roles in the coming years as part of a “further massive reduction” – around 65 percent of the former and 20 percent of the latter.
IG Metall – which is currently participating in these works council meetings with the automaker – noted that it plans to take action if Ford doesn’t change its plans to cull its European work force in the coming years. “If negotiations between the works council and management in coming weeks do not ensure the future of workers, we will join the process. We will not hold back from measures that could seriously impact the company not just in Germany but Europe-wide,” the union said in a statement.
For now, Ford isn’t commenting on this matter, but did note that structural changes will be required as the automaker moves toward electrifying its entire European passenger vehicle lineup, which is expected to take place by 2030. Currently, Ford employs around 45,000 people in that particular region.
We’ll have more on this as soon as it’s available, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for continuous Ford news coverage.
Comments
Jerome Powell and staff, a recession looks like it’s starting with these and the tech sector layoffs. Should you consider both smaller interest rate increases and, allowing the increases you’ve already implemented, to actually have some effect, before initiating additional increases.
Did I miss some obscure link between the Fed’s actions in the USA (to slow inflation) and Ford’s plans to eliminate ICE-age jobs in Europe (to right size it’s operations and cost structure)?
Europe is mandating these changes, so I can’t entirely blame Ford. But Europe is going to plunge itself into energy chaos. Reality does not support their dreams.
europe is doing just fine with energy. could use a bit more nuke on the generation side but it won’t be a dystopic apocalypse you always seem envision.
Europe is already in energy chaos, driven by the war in Ukraine, not EV production.
There’s no energy chaos.
It was predicted to try and run up prices, but alternative sources of supply, conservation, and an unusually warm winter have prevented this.
Yup. Toyota’s are in super high demand. Great reliability, efficient, and they rejected electric vehicles. Win win.
And Shane’s mini me fembot has come with the predicted add on to amp up the Toyota line for the female demographic.
Seems Toyota is pushing hard against Ford given its late pivot to BEV.
I suppose we will have to endure the Shane Shayla tag team bot show until Toyota rolls out it’s corporate BEV platform in mid year.
At least Toyota will be here long after Ford closes its doors due to lack of sales. Plus, Toyota’s are generally much safer and are not getting recalled which seems like every five minutes like some other lesser-quality company like Ford. Ford first needs to learn how to build vehicles correctly. Maybe Toyota can teach them how to do it right.