Ford confirms the loss of around 3,000 jobs

The American automaker Ford confirmed on Monday the cut of around 3,000 positions, mainly in the United States, Canada and India, with the aim of reducing certain costs to accelerate its transition to the electric vehicles. This restructuring concerns around 2,000 employee positions and 1,000 employee positions under contract via employment agencies, a spokesperson for the manufacturer told AFP. But it does not affect positions on production lines.

The announcement is not a surprise: several American media had reported in July that the group, which has around 182,000 employees worldwide, was preparing to lay off several thousand of them. “We are definitely overcrowded in some places, no doubt“, had also declared the general manager of Ford, Jim Farley, during a conference call at the end of July. “We have skills that no longer work, and we have jobs that need to change“, he added without specifying the number of positions involved.

The energy transition of the automobile in question

The group had already suggested possible layoffs when it announced a major new strategy in March, with the creation of a new entity dedicated to electric vehicles, Ford Model e. Pushed by Tesla and other start-ups, Ford has indeed put the accelerator towards less polluting cars in recent years, planning to devote 50 billion dollars to it by 2026.

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But this new priority must be accompanied by a reduction in expenditure in the sector dedicated to traditional vehicles of up to 3 billion dollars per year, the management of the company had indicated in March. The deletions announced on Monday “are consistent with what we have been describing for some timeand aim tobe more efficientcompany-wide, the spokesperson commented.

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