Ford Plans Salaried Position Cull in North America, Asia

by Steph Willems

Published: May 17th, 2017

ford plans salaried position cull in north america asia

A day after media reports described an impending mass layoff of Ford Motor Company employees, the automaker has clarified who gets to keep a job.

While the scale of the job reductions is less than previously reported — a 10-percent global workforce reduction is off the table — Ford does plan to cull its salaried North American and Asian workforce by one-tenth in a bid to cut costs.

The move comes after last week’s tense shareholders meeting during which investors and analysts grilled CEO Mark Fields over the company’s sinking market valuation. Since taking the helm three years ago, Fields has seen the company’s stock price sink by roughly 40 percent. Hourly workers aren’t affected by the plan, though the same can’t be said for white-collar employees.

In a statement released this morning, Ford said the layoffs — which will come either through early retirement or separation packages — are meant to boost the company’s profitability. The automaker still plans to invest in “emerging opportunities” such as the mobility sector.

“Reducing costs and becoming as lean and efficient as possible also remain part of that work, including plans to reduce 10 percent of our salaried costs and personnel levels in North America and Asia Pacific this year, using voluntary packages,” the company stated.

Ford hopes streamlining its operations will make the company more attractive to investors. In its latest earnings report, the automaker saw first-quarter profits fall 35 percent.

The personnel cuts won’t spare many of the company’s skill teams. Only members of the product development, Ford Credit, information technology, and global data and analytics teams remain safe from staff reductions, leaving many more wide open. With about 15,000 skill team members in both regions, the cuts should amount to around 1,400 people.

North America should shoulder the majority of the job losses.

Other regions — South America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa — will remain unaffected by the salaried cuts. Also, by keeping the layoffs within the white-collar sphere, Ford diminishes the chances of backlash from the Trump administration.

[Source: The Detroit News] [Image: Ford Motor Company]

#Cost-cutting #Ford #Jobs #MarkFields #Profits #Streamlining

Steph Willems

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Higheriq on May 17, 2017

This story is wrong from the get-go: "A day after media reports described an impending mass layoff of Ford Motor Company employees, the automaker has clarified who gets to keep a job." The job cuts are VOLUNTARY. Does TTAC not know what VOLUNTARY means?

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- Scoutdude on May 17, 2017
  
  Do you know what Voluntary means when it proceeded the word Layoffs? It means everyone x years away from retirement will be offered a early retirement. Once the deadline for that has passed they will put out a severance package offer to the general rank and file. When that only reaches 50% of the goal then they will drop the ax until they reach the level they want.
  
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- Whatnext on May 17, 2017
  
  Yeah, voluntary means those jobs won't be there for the next cohort of workers looking to move up. It means no new jobs will be created. A great example of the shortsightedness of people looking to pump the share price, rather than the product.
  
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- Highdesertcat on May 17, 2017
  
  @Scoutdude They've done that before, exactly like that, IIRC.
  
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- AdventureSteve on May 18, 2017
  
  LOL, yeah, I was part of a voluntary action once. They said, "Everyone who wants to be part of the organization after tomorrow, take one step forward. Not you, Steve."
  
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- Higheriq on May 18, 2017
  
  @Scoutdude Do you know that that Ford is limiting the early retirements to only a few areas. If not enough people take the bait, other areas will be included. These are STILL VOLUNTARY. If not enough take the VOLUNTARY packages, they will then become involuntary packages.
  
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- Highdesertcat on May 18, 2017
  
  @Higheriq Not necessarily. If they accept VOLUNTARY early retirement, they must sign a contract that states they will not sue their former employer for more money at some future date. In the past, the people who did not take the initial voluntary offer, thought they could sue for wrongful termination when they were eventually terminated. They lost badly in court.
  
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- Scoutdude on May 18, 2017
  
  @Higheriq Which is exactly my point, they claim it is voluntary but the reality is that they know there will not be enough volunteers so there will be a bunch of voluntolds.
  
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- Highdesertcat on May 18, 2017
  
  @Scoutdude The early bird gets the worm. IMO, if the offer is made, better to take the money and run. If the offer is made, obviously the employee is not a keeper. They find ways for keepers to stay on. Happens in every Reduction in Force (RIF).
  
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Anomaly149 on May 18, 2017

Well crud

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