Ford will cut 3,800 jobs across Europe, or 11 percent of the region’s workforce, as it streamlines its model range and prepares to stop selling engine-driven cars this decade.
The US carmaker, which is to cut jobs over the next two years, will cut product development, such as designers, engineers and testers, while about one in five back-office roles will also disappear.
It will cut 2,300 German jobs, with 1,700 from product development, while the UK will lose 1,300 roles, with 1,000 from product development. Another 200 jobs will be lost elsewhere. Today, the business has 34,000 staff in Europe including 6,500 in the UK.
Ford has been reducing its line-up in Europe, where it is struggling to turn a profit. The brand has eliminated smaller cars such as the Fiesta and Focus from the region and is preparing to launch a series of electric-only models, which are not complicated to develop.
“The number of [product development] there is less work to be done because of the simplification,” Ford UK boss Tim Slatter told the Financial Times.
“The demand for product development activities globally is decreasing [because] the fact is that once the technology is developed, it is easier to install it repeatedly in future vehicles.
In Europe, the company expects to sell only electric cars by 2030 and will phase out engine-driven vans by 2035.
The British site in Dunton, where most of the British pieces will fall, is responsible for designing the Transit van, which will continue to offer hybrids until the middle of the next decade.
The cuts make up more than 40 percent of Ford’s European product development team, roughly in line with chief executive Jim Farley’s prediction that the group will need 40 percent fewer staff to develop battery models.
Last summer Ford cut about 3,000 product development roles in the US, Canada and India.
Germany’s IG Metall union, which represents Germany’s 2.2 million industrial workers, warned last month that planned Ford cuts would be “unimaginable” for workers.
It also questions the “future of Ford’s German sites” including its flagship factory in Cologne, which makes the Fiesta.
Ford is in talks to sell its Saarlouis plant in Germany but has said it is investing €2 billion in its site in Cologne to produce electric models at the plant.
The carmaker also announced a £380 million investment in its Halewood plant in Liverpool to produce electric components for battery vehicles.
“This is a difficult decision, not taken lightly,” said Ford’s European boss, Martin Sander. “We understand the uncertainty this has caused for our team and I assure you that we will offer our full support in the coming months.”
The US company has also been cutting operations to try to boost profits, as it struggles with persistent global chip shortages and rising costs.
Sander told the FT earlier this year that electric vehicle units in the region would not be profitable until 2025.
boss UK Slatter said the announcement is part of an orderly shift in business and not a reaction within the company to poor financial performance in the last quarter.