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Ford Motor Co. is revealed to be moving some of its job roles to the United States. But unfortunately, this will result in job cuts in Europe, and about 3,200 workers are set to be affected by the move.
Ford Motor said that it is planning to terminate jobs across Europe after reducing its workforce in the United States. The company said that this is part of its strategy to minimize costs as it shifts to the production of electric vehicles.
Based on the reports, the majority of the jobs included in the layoffs are in Germany, and employees in administrative and product development are set to lose their jobs soon. With this development, the IG Metall labor union is protesting the decision.
The union said on Monday, Jan. 23, that after an extraordinary works council meeting that was held at Ford Motor’s production plant in Cologne, they learned that the job terminations would affect about 65% of development jobs in Europe.
The IG Metall said in a statement that this comes as the automaker is relocating its development activities from Germany to the U.S. This followed the cutbacks in America, where 3,000 jobs were terminated in the second half of 2022.
According to Bloomberg, For Motor’s chief executive officer, Jim Farley said that their target is to cut $3 billion in costs as the company looks to increase earnings from traditional internal combustion engine auto units to help fund its $50 billion investment for the development of electric vehicles.
“We absolutely have too many people in some places, no doubt about it,” the Ford Motor CEO previously told business analysts last year. “We have skills that do not work any longer, and we have jobs that need to change.”
In any case, it was said that the automaker declined to confirm whether the job layoffs in Europe are pushing through. Instead, the company’s spokesperson simply said that they have not yet made any decisions.
Meanwhile, Reuters quoted the European labor union, IG Metall, as saying, "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."
Photo by: Jessy Smith/Unsplash
