Over the next few days, thousands of Ford Motor Company salaried workers will be laid off, the bulk of them in Michigan, as the company works to cut costs and continues to reorganize and transform its business model.
In a memo sent to about 31,000 Ford employees in North America on Monday, CEO Bill Ford and CEO Jim Farley explained that to “address all aspects of costs — from materials to those related to quality,” Ford will reduce its salaried workforce by 2,000 and more employees. Agency by 1,000 in the United States, Canada and India.
The majority of the cuts will be in the United States, Ford spokesman Mark Trobey told the Free Press, adding that “the majority of our employee base is in Michigan, so a significant proportion of the job cuts are in Michigan.”
Ford has restructured its operations over the past two years, including dividing into divisions focused on electric vehicles, internal combustion vehicles, and commercial sales. It’s part of the Ford+ plan.
Truby said the jobs that were cut were not in any specific part of the company. Ford chose the jobs it would cut, “based on a comprehensive view of business needs.”
But Truby said the move was not related to recession fears and did not affect Ford’s announcement in June that it would invest $2 billion in Michigan to create 3,200 union jobs, including nearly 2,000 jobs at three assembly plants to increase production for all-electric pickup F- 150 Lightning.
“So we’re adding more jobs to the internet in Michigan,” Truby said. “It’s a rebalancing because those jobs we talked about were hourly employees. The jobs we’re talking about today are white collar jobs. And on an absolute basis, we’re still adding jobs in Michigan if you look at both commitments.”
Hard and emotional time
In the memo, Ford and Farley explained that Ford considered the “transforming work statement associated with each team’s Ford+ plan” and that the automaker was eliminating work, reorganizing and streamlining jobs across the company. The memo said Ford managers will provide employees with more details about all of this later this week.
“None of this changes the fact that this is a difficult and emotional time,” Ford and Farley wrote. “The people who left the company this week are friends and co-workers and we want to thank them for everything they have contributed to Ford.”
Truby said Ford is working closely with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation to help those whose jobs have been eliminated find other work, noting that people are hiring now.
In fact, there’s a free career fair Tuesday at the Novi Emagine Theater from 8:30 a.m. to noon for those laid off from multiple Detroit companies including Ford, Rivian and Rocket Mortgage. There will be seven companies at the event, including Brose, Harley Davidson and Lordstown Motor, who will be recruiting and these companies will bring in their own hiring teams, Matthew Karanga, who organized the show and is vice president of sales for the engineering recruitment firm, said. LER TechForce.
Truby said the job cuts “are not a reaction to fears of a recession or concerns about the economy.” “This is really just about positioning the company to succeed, to implement our plan and reduce our costs.”
Reducing costs and reorganizing
Ford has been working on the Ford+ plan for a few years now. In March, the automaker announced a radical plan to split the company into divisions: Ford Pro to focus on its business, Ford Blue, which will focus on the conventional internal combustion engine, and Ford Model E, which will develop electric and battery vehicles. Connection.
The idea is to help the 119-year-old automaker be more competitive against Tesla, the industry’s biggest electric vehicle competitor, as well as Crosstown rival General Motors, which plans to offer a zero-emissions lineup by 2035.
Truby said Ford is investing $50 billion in developing electric and connected vehicles over the next several years. But he didn’t know exactly what savings Ford would make through recent job cuts.
“What we’ve said in the past is that we want to reduce our total structural costs by $3 billion over time, over the next few years,” Truby said. “This is not just a computation, these are total costs.”
more:Ford is appealing a $1.7 billion ruling in a Georgia truck crash
more:GM and Ford struggle to keep electric vehicle prices low when customers say they cost too much
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: j[email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @Jillaryuan. read more General motors And subscribe to our site Automotive Newsletter. be a subscriber.
“Beer fan. Travel specialist. Amateur alcohol scholar. Bacon trailblazer. Music fanatic.”