Photo: ANP
Ford Motor Company announced massive job cuts in Europe for the second time in less than a month. The US group will cut 1,100 jobs in Spain. Recently, thousands of layoffs have been announced in Germany and the United Kingdom.
The move in Spain follows the planned halt in April of production of the S-Max and Galaxy models at Ford’s plant in Musaffah, south of Valencia. The factory, which opened in 1976, currently employs 5,800 workers.
In February, Ford said it would cut 3,800 jobs in Europe over the next three years. Of these, 2,300 have disappeared in Germany and 1,300 in the UK. The remaining 200 jobs will be cut in other countries. This relates to both technical and administrative jobs.
Several large US companies have recently announced that they will lay off many people to cut costs. Microsoft and Alphabet, among others, were forced to do so by the worsening economic situation.
At Ford, it also plays a role that the company is currently rapidly transitioning into electric vehicles. It contains fewer parts, so soon there will be less work to develop the parts. According to experts, Ford started switching relatively late. But the company’s goal is to only sell electric cars in the European Union from 2030.
Ford had about 45,000 employees across Europe at the beginning of this year. In recent years, Ford has really become much smaller in this part of the world. The company decided to offer a much smaller number of different cars here and in 2019 it also cut 12,000 jobs. Then more than 5,000 jobs disappeared in Germany and significant cuts also occurred in Russia, France and the United Kingdom.
