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Ford Motor Company said that over the next two years, it would cut 1,300 jobs in the U.K. This is one-fifth of all the company’s jobs in the country.
It’s part of a big plan to reorganize the company, and 3,800 jobs will be lost across Europe.
Ford Motor Company is reducing the number of people working on research and development because the economy is still being determined, and the company is getting ready to switch to electric cars.
Most job cuts in the U.K. will happen at the company’s research site in Dunton, Essex.
Several hundred back-office jobs are also likely to be lost at sites throughout the country. But the factories in Halewood, Dagenham, and Daventry will keep running as usual.
The Unite union said it would work with Ford to keep “as many jobs as possible.”
The news was “disappointing,” said John Baron, a Conservative MP whose district includes the Dunton site.
“I know Ford wants to make these cuts by letting people quit on their own, but I also know that it will be scary for my constituents who work at the Dunton site.”
On the other hand, work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said it wasn’t “just a U.K. thing.”
He said he was working on a “rapid response service” that would help people who lost their jobs find new ones and be ready “very soon.”
Since Ford closed its engine plant in Bridgend, less than two years have passed.
But he said that wasn’t all that was happening. The way Ford of Europe does business is about to change in a big way.
It hopes that by 2030, all of the cars it makes in the area will be fully electric.
By the same day, two out of every three business vehicles will be electric or plug-in hybrids.
Unite union said that there needed to be “concrete plans” to change the U.K.’s vehicle production and transportation network and keep “high-quality” jobs in the country.
Ford Motor Company will also try to avoid being seen as a company that makes cheap cars that many people use daily.
Instead, it wants to make a smaller number of unique cars that use brand names to their advantage, like the Mustang Mach-E and the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck.
It also wants to pay more attention to its line of commercial cars, especially the Transit.
The Mondeo is already out of production. In June, Cologne, Germany, will make the last Fiesta.
The once-popular runabout isn’t worth making any more and won’t be replaced directly. Most people instead think that “Fiesta” will soon be forgotten.
But it costs a lot to make new electric cars. Ford plans to spend about $50 billion (£41 billion) on this over the next few years.
As part of this plan, it has set aside £380 million to turn its gearbox factory in Halewood, Merseyside, into a place where hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles can be made yearly.
Ford Motor Company thinks that fewer people will be needed to work on new products as the development of traditional gasoline and diesel cars continues. This is because, even though their software is complicated, electric cars only have a few complicated parts.
So it thinks that this is a way to save money. But unfortunately, most of the jobs that will be lost are in the United Kingdom and Germany.
Martin Sander, in charge of Ford’s electric vehicles in Europe, said, “These are hard decisions that are not made lightly.”
Ford Motor Company cites battery problems as it stops making the F-150 Lightning truck
Ford Motor Company announced on Tuesday that it would stop making the popular F-150 Lightning because the battery might not work right.
The Michigan car company first sold the F-150 Lightning last year. The company’s leaders have yet to say when they might start making things again. However, Ford’s plan to sell 600,000 Lightning trucks by 2023 is in jeopardy because production will stop.
The spokesperson also didn’t say what the pause means for trucks already on dealer lots or in people’s driveways.
According to the most recent company data, Ford has sold 15,617 electric trucks since they came out last May. In addition, the company sold 2,436 items in October, the most it had ever sold in one month.
Soaring demand for EVs
Ford Motor Company is spending a lot of money on a new building for the F-150 Lightning, which has already won the 2023 MotorTrend Truck of the Year award.
When the company first discussed the truck in 2021, more than 100,000 people wanted to pre-order it in just three weeks. A new plant was built in Dearborn, Michigan, where the car was made.
Read Also: Electric cars could increase EU and US rift
Ford Motor Company is taking a break at a time when more and more people in the U.S. want electric cars. A survey by the auto club AAA found that about a quarter of Americans want to buy an electric car when they buy their next vehicle. In addition, a company called Recurrent that studies the auto industry found that the number of people who want to buy an electric car has increased by 70% since January.
