Ford will minimize greater than 1,000 jobs in Germany because it switches its enterprise within the area to promoting solely electrical automobiles.
The automaker plans to scale back the workforce at its European headquarters and manufacturing facility in Cologne, Germany, by a four-digit quantity, sources advised Automotive Information Europe sister publication Automobilwoche.
The job losses might be throughout the board in meeting, engine and transmission manufacturing, and in addition in improvement, administration and sale, the sources mentioned.
The corporate is creating a brand new enterprise construction for its European operations, the sources mentioned.
Ford is pulling out of low margin quantity segments comparable to small automobiles and compact fashions in a bid to make its European enterprise sustainably worthwhile.
The automaker is spending $2 billion to transform its Cologne plant to construct two battery-electric automobiles based mostly on Volkswagen Group’s MEB platform, whereas ending output of the long-running Fiesta hatchback there. It can drop the Focus compact automotive in 2025 after ending manufacturing of the automotive at its plant in Saarlouis, Germany.
Ford’s passenger lineup in Europe will grow to be all-electric by 2030 and it expects two-thirds of business van gross sales to be all-electric or plug-in hybrids by the identical date.
The top of the Cologne plant’s works council has known as a gathering for all 14,000 workers of the manufacturing facility on Monday.
Ford declined to touch upon the report however mentioned the transformation to electrical autos required “vital change” in the way in which it produces automobiles.
“Now we have no touch upon the present hypothesis a couple of attainable restructuring at Ford in Europe,” a spokesperson mentioned.
Reuters contributed to this report