Ford is offering buyouts to 15,000 employees as it looks to trim 1,400 salaried workers from its ranks.
Ford Motor Co. is offering some 15,000 employees “voluntary separation” packages as it moves ahead with global restructuring triggered by falling earnings and by a weak share price.
A Ford spokesman confirmed the offers. “We expect 1,400 salaried positions to be affected,” the spokesman wrote in an email to TheDetroitBureau.com.
The voluntary reduction program uses early retirement and special separation packages aimed at employees interested in changing careers or exploring new opportunities.
Staffs targeted for cut are finance, legal, communications, government affairs, purchasing, marketing sales and service in North America and Asia Pacific, the spokesman added.
(Ford outsells GM in May riding fleet sales. Click Here for the story.)
The cuts were outlined last month by Ford officials on the eve of an executive shake up that included the forced retirement of CEO Mark Fields. Fields was replaced by Jim Hackett, who was tasked with giving Ford employees clear direction that seems to have evaporated since former CEO Alan Mulally’s retirement in 2014.
“Most skill teams in North America and Asia Pacific will be involved with the exception of: Product Development and Ford Credit, which already are improving total operating efficiencies in other ways; plant manufacturing, which has its work force levels tied to our production; IT, which is restructuring to keep up with the company’s transformation to an auto and a mobility company; and Global Data and Analytics, a new skill team that is still forming,” the spokesman said.
(Ford raises production levels of small utes at Kentucky plant. Want to know why? Click Here.)
Meanwhile, Ford of Europe and South America already have completed similar actions or have them underway, these regions will not be included in the 15,000 offers. Ford operations in the Middle East and Africa are also not included, since Ford is just building this new business unit.
Ford’s earnings dropped 35% to $1.6 billion in the first quarter and passenger car sales are off dramatically and the value of its share have fallen despite a string of record sales for the automobile industry.
On top of that, its market cap is lower than that of Tesla, which builds fewer than 100,000 vehicles annually.
(Click Here for the details about Mark Fields’ departure from Ford.)
On the plus side, the company is considered a leader in autonomous technology and its truck and sport utility vehicles remain strong and it has managed to rebuild its operations in Europe at the same time it has expanded in China.