AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/24 Report--

Ford Motor Company announced on Aug. 22 that it will cut 3000 jobs, mainly to speed up the transition to electrification, according to a CCTV financial report. It is understood that a total of 3000 job cuts include 2000 full-time employees and 1000 contract workers, mainly in the United States, Canada and India. Meanwhile, Ford CEO Farley pointed out in an email to employees on Aug. 22 that Ford's cost structure was uncompetitive with both traditional and new competitors. With regard to the layoffs, Ford spokesman Reid (T.R. Reid) said that the company will continue to change as the industry changes, or more jobs will be lost. It is common for companies to keep adding staff where needed and laying off staff where demand decreases.

In addition, Jim Farley, Ford's chief executive, has said: there are too many people in car factories, and competition in the auto industry is gradually shifting to electric vehicles and digital services, while Ford has only a small number of employees with the corresponding skills. Most of the existing employees are still engaged in the production of traditional fuel cars, and the rising price of raw materials has put additional pressure on Ford. It is estimated that Ford's operating costs will increase by $3 billion (about 20.4 billion yuan) this year. At present, Ford has begun to divide its business into three operating divisions, namely, electric, internal combustion engines and commercial vehicles. Ford said it expected the layoffs to affect all parts of the company.

In fact, there were early signs of massive layoffs at Ford, with media reports as early as July that Ford was preparing to cut 8000 jobs in the coming weeks to save $3 billion in operating costs and better focus on electric vehicles. According to relevant data, by the end of 2021, Ford has 186769 employees worldwide, of which about 90, 000 are in the United States, accounting for nearly 49%. Ford shares fell about 5% on Aug. 22 to close at $15.08 on news of the massive layoffs.

With the rapid rise of new energy vehicles, Ford is also accelerating the process of electrification. As early as March this year, Ford had a distributed restructuring plan to split the traditional fuel vehicle and electric vehicle businesses into two parts. Among them, the fuel vehicle business is called "Ford Blue" and the electric vehicle business is called "Ford Model e", which is led by different teams and the financial statements will be separated. Ford Blue specializes in producing traditional fuel engines for sports utility vehicles such as the Bronco. Ford CEO Jim Farley has said he intends to turn Ford Blue into the company's profit and cash engine to fund the expansion of the electric vehicle business.

In July, Ford officially released a Ford electric book, which revealed that it is expected to invest US $50 billion by 2026 to build hardware facilities such as electric vehicle production bases and battery module research and development centers around the world. The goal is to increase the total production capacity of electric vehicles to 600000 next year and to reach annual production of 2 million by 2026. At the same time, it pointed out that in addition to the current Mustang Mach-E, F-150Lightning and E-Transit series, seven electric car models are expected to be launched in the European market in 2024.

It is worth noting that under the trend that new energy vehicles will become the future, many automobile giants have also carried out large-scale layoffs to speed up the electrified transformation. As early as the end of 2018, General Motors announced that it planned to close seven factories and cut more than 10,000 jobs due to rising manufacturing costs and slowing sales of conventional cars. Elon Musk, Tesla's chief executive, also said in June that Tesla was pushing ahead with plans to cut about 10 per cent of jobs based on the development of the company. In response to job cuts, mike ramsey, an analyst at Gartner Consulting, estimates that other companies are likely to be forced to cut jobs as the industry faces a future dominated by electric cars. It points out that in the production of electric cars, there is no need for engineers to make engines, transmissions and exhaust systems. Most of the existing employees of car companies do not have the skills and talents needed for transformation. At present, most car companies are facing tremendous pressure to reschedule their employees. " In response, some professionals said that the decline in the number of jobs in the auto industry over the next decade would be "a reasonable expectation". After all, electric cars have 30% fewer parts than gasoline cars and will require less labor.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat