Ford plans to cut thousands of salaried jobs as part of an $11 billion restructuring taking place between now and next year.
With General Motors caught square in the crosshairs by critics chastising the recent salaried job cuts and plant closures, Ford Motor Co. officials may be the next target, confirming today they plan to cut an unspecified number of salaried employees.
The job cuts were announced last year as part of an $11 billion global reorganization. However, no specifics were applied to how many or where they would occur. Ford officials even now won’t confirm how many.
Said Deep, a Ford spokesman, declined to tell Reuters say how many jobs are being cut but said the company expects the process to be completed by the end of June. He said the restructuring “has resulted in some separations of salaried employees and the reassignment of others.”
Ford said last year it was working to reorganize its global salaried workforce that will “result in headcount reduction over time, and this will vary based on team and location,” Reuters reported.
Ford CEO Jim Hackett wants profits to jump to $14 billion.
(UAW leaders meet as prelude to bargaining with automakers. Click Here for the story.)
Some of the changes have already been implemented. The automaker announced plans last month to close its oldest plant in Brazil, eliminating as many as 2,700 jobs there.
In January, Ford Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett told employees that 2018 had been “mediocre” and added it was “time to bury the year (2018) in a deep grave, grieve over what might have been and become super focused on meeting, and, in fact, exceeding this year’s plan.”
(Click Here for more about Ford cutting jobs in China.)
He followed that up another email to employees on March 8 warning of more changes to come across the company without specifics, aside from the future job cuts and slashing $25.5 billion from the operating budget.
“It’s natural for people on the inside and outside to raise doubts and ask tough questions as they seek clarity and certainty about our future,” Hackett wrote. “This is not a Ford phenomenon by the way. Many pundits dismissed Fiat Chrysler as a lost cause coming out of Chapter 11 and predicted Tesla would go bankrupt years ago.”
(Ford’s future relies on its manufacturing prowess. Click Here for the story.)
The company is hoping that a mix of new products, led by the cutting of all of its passenger cars, and the start of new autonomous vehicles in 2021, will help lead to a doubling of profits, i.e. about $14 billion, that Hackett has laid out as the company’s new target.