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]