Ford Europe slashes staff headcount by 3,800
Ford of Europe today announced redundancies across the continent, 1,300 of which will go from the UK
More doom and gloom. This time it’s the anticipated job cuts from Ford of Europe, which is axing 3,800 roles from administrative and product development across the continent. It’s the third round of European job cuts from the US brand in the last five years, after it slashed its headcount in 2019 and 2020. That was to raise its operating margin to six per cent – a goal that was inevitably missed thanks to the pressures of the pandemic and semi-conductor shortages, leaving them at 2.2 per cent for the first nine months of 2022.
This round of cuts will be spread over the next three years and, where possible, Ford has said it intends the redundancies to be voluntary. The plan is to reduce its staffing by 2,300 in Cologne and Aachen, Germany, 1,300 people from the UK (that’s roughly one-fifth of its workforce here), and a further 200 people from across the rest of its facilities in Europe. That still leaves around 3,400 engineers based in the region.
The reasons given are rising costs within its operations, which include the inflationary pressures resulting from wage increases, higher interest rates and higher energy costs, but it’s also looking to slim down its workforce as the company shifts to exclusively EV production. The intention is that this will happen by 2030, while the majority of its commercial products will be a mix of BEV and hybrid by then.
At the same time, it’s slimming down its lineup. The Mondeo has already been killed off, and we know that the Fiesta and Focus will come to an end in the very near future. Instead of those volume models, it’s looking to sure up profits by focusing on more high-end vehicles. Fewer models means fewer people to needed develop them, a fact compounded by the simplicity of electric drivetrains, which don’t require such large teams to engineer.
On top of that, it is sharing platforms with other companies – while the new Ranger's underpinnings have been licensed to Volkswagen for its Amarok, Ford's next EV will be based on VW’s MEB platform. Even so, developing a range of new electric vehicles is, as we know, very costly. Ford has recently announced plans to invest $50b (£41b) into EV production, with $3.5b (£2.9b) earmarked for its first battery plant in the US.
In the UK, the majority of the cuts will be at Ford’s research site at Dunton, Essex. It’s sites Dagenham and Daventry will not be affected, and nor will Halewood, which has had a £380m investment to swap from gearbox manufacture to making electric motors. £125m of that came as recently as December 2022.
Martin Sander, General Manager of Ford Model e in Europe, said, “These are difficult decisions, not taken lightly. We recognize the uncertainty it creates for our team, and I assure them we will be offering them our full support in the months ahead. We will engage in consultations with our social partners so we can move forward together on building a thriving future for our business in Europe”.
k ups with the eco boost and Eco blue engines hurting reliability side. They been cutting down dealer network last 3 years so this isn't really a surprise.I work for a ford dealer and it's such a shame see them missing the mark on so many levels but management still believe they are the best.
Younger people drive less ( if they can afford it ), work from home and less travelling reps etc just reduce the need for cars.
Cars are also better built and generally last longer, and come with longer warranties. As opposed to buying a new cheap starter car, you may as well get a better 3yr old model.
After years dominating the market with mediocre junk, they tried hard to make some pretty decent stuff in recent decades and this is the thanks Ford gets...
Trouble is, they were still geared to market domination and simply had too much capacity to turn a profit so the results were inevitable.
I hope they can continue as a boutique seller of Mustangs & Rangers & stuff. Live the American Dream whilst it lasts...
The detail hardly matches the headline. Big company like that will probably do it with natural attrition eg let people leave naturally and just don't replace them.
TX.
Edit - the people leaving will no doubt appreciate this though "Ford has recently announced plans to invest $50b (£41b) into EV production, with $3.5b (£2.9b) earmarked for its first battery plant in the US".
k ups with the eco boost and Eco blue engines hurting reliability side. They been cutting down dealer network last 3 years so this isn't really a surprise.I work for a ford dealer and it's such a shame see them missing the mark on so many levels but management still believe they are the best.
VW have done similar with the Polo. Thats essentially been taken over by 3 small crossovers.
There is no wonder the Koreans are clearing up, they still offer a full range of cars. Brands like MG and Kia are also picking off Ford sales. Its the same as what has done it in for Honda.
I'm surprised they still have a presence manufacturing in Germany, considering they have moved all their commercials to Turkey (lower wages, less unions, worse H&S).
They have abandoned their traditional market segments, are western manufacturers giving up that easily to the far east?
And if you work in the engineering side between the amount work being dragged back to the US (with maybe some mild European localization done at the end) or shifted to platform shares engineered elsewhere you'd surely have had a clue you were going to be squeezed out.
Strategy has been bulls
t too between starving or abandoned its existing product without having the replacements in place or the ability to build what new product does exist at any sort of scale. Bad enough in the US let alone the mess that affected other markets. Doubtless the death will be slow but the way things are going the company is going to be a rump with a fraction of the customers it had, and it'll apparently all be on purpose to achieve ???.
The rest of the county definitely still drives, all my friends do & all my younger brothers friends do as well (fairly large combined pool of people from different societal backgrounds as well).
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