Latest Layoffs: US-based carmaker Ford is planning to eliminate 3,800 product development and administration jobs in Europe in the next three years, according to a statement. The company cited rising costs and the need for a leaner structure as it pivots production to electric vehicles.
Ford said about 2,300 jobs will be cut in Germany, 1,300 in the UK and 200 in the rest of Europe. It added that it intends to achieve the reductions through voluntary separation programmes.
The US-based company will retain around 3,400 engineers in the region who will build on core technology provided by their U.S. counterparts and adapt it to European customers, European passenger electric vehicle (EV) chief and head of Ford Germany Martin Sander said on a press call.
“There is significantly less work to be done on drivetrains moving out of combustion engines. We are moving into a world with less global platforms where less engineering work is necessary. This is why we have to make the adjustments,” Sander said.
Nothing has changed in the carmaker’s electrification strategy, Sander added, with the goal of offering an all-electric fleet in Europe by 2035 still in place.
Ford is due to launch its first electric vehicle in Europe built on Volkswagen’s MEB platform in Cologne later this year and is considering bringing a Ford platform to Europe, possibly to its plant in Valencia, Sander said.
“We are preparing our organisation to compete and win in a region facing unprecedented economic and geopolitical headwinds,” he said.
The year 2023 has witnessed mass layoffs by companies such as Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and Amazon, among others. Google laid off 6 per cent of its workforce or 12,000 employees, the highest among all companies. Microsoft let go of 10,000 employees, Amazon sacked around 8,000 employees.
Apart from these, Salesforce laid off 8,000 employees, Dell sacked 6,650, IBM about 3,900, SAP nearly 3,000, Zoom around 1,300, and Coinbase about 950 employees, among others.
(With Inputs From Agencies)
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