Ford to cut 3000 jobs in North America and India, follows Australian cuts

UPDATE, August 25: 3000 more jobs to go

Ford is planning to cut 3000 jobs globally this week, according to new reports.

A letter sent to employees and seen by Automotive News Europe revealed the positions going will be a mix of full-time staff and contractors working in Canada and India.

The jobs going are understood to be across a variety of fields, and are expected to come in both its Ford Blue and Model e divisions.

Speaking with Wheels Media today, a Ford Australia spokesperson said:

"As we continue to deliver our Ford+ plan for growth and value creation, we are working to address all aspects of costs to improve our competitiveness and ensure we can fully invest in growth.

"This week, we are making reductions to our salaried workforce in the US and Canada, as well as our Ford Business Services operation in India. These actions affect approximately 2000 salaried Ford employees and about 1000 agency personnel."

The news comes in the same week that the company its production investments in Spain, citing a "revised outlook for Europe".

No jobs will be cut at its plant in Valencia for now, a report by ANE said, although it is thought there will be some restructuring of its workforce there due to the switch to electrification.

Last week WhichCar reported Ford Australia has confirmed it will end 120 contract roles in its development and design teams, where the company still conceives and engineers models like the Ranger for global markets despite no longer manufacturing vehicles locally.

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July 22: Ford planning 600,000 EVs by 2023, needs to cut jobs to do it

Ford has confirmed it has secured the battery capacity needed to achieve 600,000 global EV sales by the end of 2023, on its way to a target of 2 million annual EV sales by 2026.

In 2021, Ford sold just 27,140 EVs in the US.

In a rare show of transparency, Ford revealed that its 600,000 EV target is expected to be made up of 270,000 Mustang Mach E SUVs in North America, Europe and China; 150,000 F-150 Lightning trucks for North America; 150,000 Transit EV vans for North America and Europe; and 30,000 units “of an all-new SUV” for Europe.

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Australia is conspicuously absent from that list, although Ford has previously confirmed we can expect its big e-Transit and smaller e-Transit Custom vans to arrive in late 2022 (originally mid-2022) and 2024 respectively. Officially, the Mustang Mach E and F-150 Lightning remain in the “no current plans” column for now.

Announcing the milestone this week – which forms part of its new dedicated EV-focused Model E division’s mandate – Ford also confirmed it would offer new lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery packs for North American variants of the Mustang Mach E and F-150 Lightning EVs.

In adding LFP batteries to its portfolio, Ford follows Tesla in reducing its reliance on nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) chemistry – which Ford claims will result in a 10 to 15 per cent saving on battery materials.

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Ford reported to be planning to cut up to 8000 jobs in ICE division

To power its push towards EV domination, Ford is reportedly preparing to cut up to 8000 jobs across more conventional areas of its North American business, where it employs around 31,000 salaried staff.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has previously confirmed plans to cut nearly $4.5 billion in costs by 2026. According to business paper Bloomberg, those 8000 job cuts – to be made mostly in the Ford Blue division that focuses on internal combustion engines – will play a major part in achieving that target.

Ford has declined to comment on the cuts, with global communications boss Mark Truby offering only this statement: “We have laid out clear targets to lower our cost structure to ensure we are lean and fully competitive with the best in the industry”.

Speaking on Bloomberg Television in March, Farley said the company’s EV investment – now up to $50 billion – needs to be funded by the company’s “core automotive operations”.

“That’s why we created a separate group called Ford Blue, because we need them to be more profitable to fund this,” Farley said.