Thread regarding Ford layoffs

To previous poster it all boils down to making a decision early in adulthood to live below your means and invest/save the rest. Everything else stems from that. As an example, one set of my grandparents were millionaires when they died in 1980, the other had 20k. Both were farmers, small family farms in Oklahoma and Kansas, both farmed thru the dust bowl. The difference was one set never took on debt and weren’t spendthrifts, the other did both.

It is a hard lesson to learn late in life. Jack Bogle had it right.

Not everyone is financially illiterate. Although I agree Americans tend to have bad spending habits. There are way too many things you ignore and logically you are not sound either.

For your theory to work:
You need to have a VERY stable life, know what you want decades in advance
You better be of a good background, your rising to the top consumes significant time and cost
You need to start investing VERY early, question is with what money?
You need to be able to work for 40 years without significant interruptions (good luck!) at high income, I claim being an engineer alone at a good company is not sufficient
You can't have too many kids
You can't have too many dreams in your life
You can't die at retirement age or your kids will spend it on a pool, boat, RV
You need to master economic downturns and not get steamrolled
You can't be in need of student loans that need long pay off
You have to invest in markets that tend to grow strongly and have not outgrown themselves, compare US with other regions
You have to miss market downturns
You have to have enough invested during bullish times and not have d-mb ideas
Your company has to contribute properly to your 401k which Ford does with limitations
Your yearly salary needs to be high enough which requires an excellent career
Your spouse needs to work ideally earning equally
You mustn't have to support your parents
You better have good genes and be healthy
Your house can't become worthless
You can't have accidents, as well as "accidents"
You can't get ill-advised by your investment professional, this is a common problem
Your home state can't have a state-run retirement system
You can't be an immigrant or be divorced or else various of these points will not work for you

Not saying you aren't correct. You are in many of your points. Just saying there can be many reasons why you are not the 10%. And if everyone was, well then there is inflation.

@2evb the average US worker

• lacks basic financial literacy
• does not contribute the max to 401k and IRA each year.
• withdraws money from 401k when they switch jobs
• withdraws money from 401k for kids college, house purchase, for other wants (pools, boats, RVs)
• misses out on gains by moving money from one fund/investment to another chasing gains
• invests in funds with high costs, not realizing how profoundly the costs impact your portfolio value over your career

Anyone with basic financial literacy and discipline can easily accumulate millions of dollars in retirement accounts. The assertion that basic financial literacy is uncommon is supported by the evidence that only around 10% of the population does accumulate that amount.

You never know what people’s stories are. They might have a special needs child that they want to leave a trust for to ensure that child is provided for after their death.

Hopefully you will educate yourself and your children on basic financial literacy. Then perhaps your children won’t need to spend their life in fear of losing their jobs.

@2uba+1hpGdxhw 18k 40 years ago is the equivalent of 54k today. Highly unlikely a starting employee had that amount of money to put away early in their career and taking those years away reduces the ending number substantially.

I'm a bit skeptical of that story because the safe withdrawal rate on 9.8 million is 392k annually. Seems odd that they would work with that size of nest egg.

@1mmi+1hpGdxhw you used the word “save” instead of invest. 10 million over 40 years isn’t that much of a feat @ that salary. Let’s say they put 18,000K in Ira/401k per year and invested in high quality low cost index funds and averaged 10% rate of return over 40 years. That is 9 million dollars. At that salary they likely also had investments other than their Ira/401k.

If you stay get used to it. Every year for my 14 years, there was a 10% task.

i do wonder how you can "save" 10 million dollars with 160k income lol. There is probably more leading into these numbers than is shown here.

But I say overall it's correct: being ambitious, switching companies more often, taking on more responsibility slowly and being conscientious about investment can pay off in the end. or it doesn't. lol

This is for sure though:

• sticking around at ford now will not yield the desired outcome anymore
• this generation is screwed though: no job stability, no fat pensions, low ball salaries, meanwhile you will work for the pension payments of the previous generation which you no longer have. No worries, it is no better in Europe.

@OP at the 5 year mark it is a good time to find another job. Early in your career it is important to find and take jobs that will increase your competency and skill sets every 3-5 years. It is important to learn how other companies and people do things and to adopt the best practices from each place you work. You will become well rounded and highly skilled. You will not be fearful of layoffs as you have skills that are in demand. Later in your career if you want to return to Ford you can. Many return to Ford late in their career for a relaxing job and find they have a significantly higher salary than those who stayed at Ford their entire career.

Spend sometime with financial calculators and see how much money you will lose out on in your career, plug in Ford 3% annual raise vs 10% raise as an example. Factor in compound interest of the money you can save and invest with the higher salary and you will see you will be leaving millions of dollars on the table by staying at Ford.

The difference is profound, especially now that there is no pension.
In the early 80s, a friend started at Ford and retired this year. His ending salary was 110K.
He was very frugal. His ending 401k was 600K, he took lump sum 1,400K. Total retirement savings 2 million.
Another friend also started at Ford in early 80’s, switched jobs every 3-5 years, retired in 2000 making 170k, returned to Ford in 2005 at 116k, left Ford in 2015 at 155k. He was not all that frugal. His ending retirement savings was 9.8 million due to compounding interest of the early years contributions, he always contributed the max to 401k and Ira.

Do the math and make an informed decision.

Honestly, now is the time to leave. Most perspective employers will like you've been long enough at a job to prove your employable, BUT not long enough to be spoiled with your previous employer's bad habits. PLUS if you did your internship with Ford and have been here that long and not already identified as "future leadership", you have been unfortunately categorized as a worker drone. Add to it that Farley announced all current employees don't have the skills, and he wants all new "talent". Well, buddy.. or gal, that includes you. Welcome to the club of 'old Ford'. Remember when you were hired and HR blew the 'you are our future'... well now you know it was all BS.

"an upwards" move at Ford you should shoot at... lol. If you happen to be GSR you wont move anywhere once you're 7 or 8. If you progress to quickly you can't reach upper brackets. Unless of course you happen to be that one gal going LL6. But then you're stuck there, too. And going sideways will be hard. You may be able to do so under the same LL2, maybe the same Director. And you could perhaps do this once or twice. If you know the hiring manager.

If you want to personally grow and further yourself you have to leave that company and likely automotive product development altogether. 5 Years were long enough. If you stick around for too long where else can you really go? Battery development isn't really automotive PD. It's electro-chemistry. Most of software is neither with a few application specific exceptions. Data science is not. So isn't mobility services. classic automotive PD will scale back imo.

if they can you in october, you will not find a job until 1st quarter next year as no one hires between november and december....i have been through two layoffs during those time frames...that is how it worked out

We don’t live in a world where staying is at the same company/job for your entire career is the norm. At this stage you should be shooting for a lateral or upward move every 3 years, either within or outside the company. It’s probably a good time to switch before the job market further cools

If you were an FCG, with only 5 years in, you should be fine.