About 3,000 white-collar workers at Ford Motor Co. are going to be losing their jobs as the company works toward cutting costs. The reason for this is partially driven by the necessary transition from internal combustion vehicles to battery-operated ones.
Leaders of the company sent out an email on Monday to the entire company letting them know about the 2,000 full-time salaried workers and the 1,000 contract workers who would be let go. These cuts would represent about 6% of the 31,000 full-time employees working in the U.S. and Canada. Ford’s 56,000 union factory workers will not be affected, but some workers in India will also lose their jobs.
These job losses come at a time of a great transition in the auto industry, which for over 100 years has been working by selling petroleum-powered vehicles. However, as Governments worldwide are trying to mitigate the impact on the climate, companies are being pushed to move away from combustion cars.
Companies, such as ford, are looking to reduce their activities in the combustion business in the next few years, while actively working towards the development of new electric vehicles. Ford has even said that by 2030 half of its global production will be electric vehicles.
In the email, Executive Chairman Bill Ford and CEO Jim Farley said that those let off will get severance benefits as well as assistance in finding new jobs. They also wrote that Ford has the chance to be leading in the new era of electric vehicles and that reshaping the way they operate is necessary in order to achieve that.
In the email they also wrote about restructuring the company structure, eliminating costs, and reorganizing the functions throughout the business.
