From the Detroit Free Press:
Ford Motor Co. worked to wrap up layoffs of salaried employees in the U.S. and Canada by late afternoon Wednesday, the automaker confirmed to the Detroit Free Press.
"Notifications are largely finished," T.R. Reid, Ford spokesman, told the Free Press. "People who were affected are being provided with severance benefits and assistance in finding new opportunities" outside the company.
In addition, some contract workers learned last week their assignments involving Ford had concluded, Reid said previously. He declined to provide either the total number of white-collar jobs eliminated by Ford or the number of contract workers affected.
A source with knowledge of the situation but not authorized to release specific numbers estimated that the Dearborn automaker cut about 1,000 salaried jobs, particularly those in engineering, from all three auto units: Ford Blue, Model e and Ford Pro, as well as certain teams that support them. Ford Blue builds gasoline-powered vehicles. Model e designs and builds electric vehicles and technology. Ford Pro runs commercial operations.
The Free Press reported previously that Ford would cut "a minimum of several hundred" jobs. A source within the company indicated that the Ford Pro team would be spared but that didn't turn out to be the case.
At the end of the first quarter, the automaker employed about 174,000 white- and blue-collar workers globally. Ford had about 28,000 white-collar workers in the U.S. and about 70,000 worldwide, Reid told the Free Press on Friday.
The Free Press had reported the cuts were expected to fall well below the 3,000 jobs slashed in August in the U.S., Canada and India. Most of those cuts were made in Michigan, where Ford is headquartered. The automaker also cut 580 jobs in April 2022.
Ford and its competitors are working to trim costs of their overall operations as they make billions in investments to change from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles.
Ford has been restructuring the company and tightening its focus. In September 2021, Ford cut manufacturing in India while at the same time planning to add software developers, data scientists, research and development engineers and finance professionals. In February, Ford Europe announced 3,800 hourly and salaried jobs had been cut over three years, mostly in product development. In March, Ford Spain notified its union partners of 1,100 job cuts with plant changes in Valencia.
Changes in the industry have created an environment that requires automakers to hire for new positions while trimming others, as skills required evolve.
The "disruption at the human level" will be "very difficult" as the legacy automaker continues making dramatic staff changes designed to help the company compete in an increasingly dynamic environment, Ford CEO Jim Farley said in March 2022.