Ford plans to cut about 10% of global workforce
Ford Motor Co plans to cut about 10% of staff worldwide as chief executive officer Mark Fields faces escalating pressure to boost profit and a lagging stock price, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The job cuts are expected to be outlined as early as this week and mostly target salaried employees, the newspaper said, citing unidentified people briefed on the plan. It’s unclear if hourly factory workers are included, the Journal said.
In Germany, where the car maker’s European operations are based, Ford has made voluntary buyout offers to a limited number of staff over the past few months, according to IG Metall union official Witich Rossmann, adding that he hasn’t been informed of a bigger job-cut program. Ford employs about 24,000 people in Germany.
“The company’s performance has been lagging, even during times when the US market was doing extremely well,” said Sascha Gommel, a Frankfurtbased automotive analyst at Commerzbank. “Ford like other carmakers is under pressure to stem increasing investments in future technologies, so they need to make adjustments elsewhere,” he said, adding that the US and South America could see the biggest hits.
Ford shareholders last week criticised company leaders over what one investor called the “pathetic” performance of the automaker’s shares and questioned how the board can continue to support Fields, who’s been CEO since July 2014. The board convened ahead of last week’s annual meeting to press him on his plans for improving the company’s fortunes, a person familiar with the discussions said.
The job cuts are expected to be outlined as early as this week and mostly target salaried employees, the newspaper said, citing unidentified people briefed on the plan. It’s unclear if hourly factory workers are included, the Journal said.
In Germany, where the car maker’s European operations are based, Ford has made voluntary buyout offers to a limited number of staff over the past few months, according to IG Metall union official Witich Rossmann, adding that he hasn’t been informed of a bigger job-cut program. Ford employs about 24,000 people in Germany.
“The company’s performance has been lagging, even during times when the US market was doing extremely well,” said Sascha Gommel, a Frankfurtbased automotive analyst at Commerzbank. “Ford like other carmakers is under pressure to stem increasing investments in future technologies, so they need to make adjustments elsewhere,” he said, adding that the US and South America could see the biggest hits.
Ford shareholders last week criticised company leaders over what one investor called the “pathetic” performance of the automaker’s shares and questioned how the board can continue to support Fields, who’s been CEO since July 2014. The board convened ahead of last week’s annual meeting to press him on his plans for improving the company’s fortunes, a person familiar with the discussions said.