Ford has announced 3800 job cuts across Europe – primarily in Germany and the UK – as part of a dramatic cost-cutting programme.
Ford of Europe boss Martin Sander announced the cuts today, explaining that the company's local workforce is being downsized in pursuit of a "leaner and more cost-competitive structure".
Ford's European engineering operations are the most dramatically impacted, accounting for 2800 of the axed roles (1700 in Germany, 1000 in the UK and 100 elsewhere in Europe), although Sander emphasised that the company will retain 3400 engineering roles in the region.
The other 1000 affected positions are administration roles, split across Germany (600), the UK (300) and other European countries (100).
Sander said: "Believe me, these are extremely difficult decisions which haven't been taken lightly. We recognise the uncertainty this creates for our team and I can assure all our employees we will be offering our full support in the months ahead."
Ford has not detailed the financial implications of these job cuts.
Sander said the engineering workforce was being downsized chiefly because of the "drastically reduced complexity of powertrains" as the company widens its portfolio of electric passenger and commercial vehicles.
"You will see more agile and more integrated working overall in our engineering team globally," he explained, "and of course there's significantly less work to be done on drivetrains as we move out of combustion engines and into a world with less top hats, less global platforms and – on top of that – less engineering work generally. That's why we have to make the adjustments."
He did, however, explain that Ford will continue to invest in the transformation of its site in Halewood, Merseyside, from a gearbox factory to an EV drive unit factory – an initiative set to cost around £380 million.
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