Ford CEO Jim Farley at the company’s Dearborn, Michigan plant where the electric F-150 Lightning will be built on April 26, 2022.
CNBC | Michael Wayland
DETROIT — Ford Motor is cutting 580 U.S. employees and contract workers as part of its ongoing Ford+ turnaround plan, the company confirmed Wednesday night.
The cuts include about 350 white-collar workers and 230 agency jobs, according to an emailed statement. Most of the cuts have been in engineering as the Detroit-based automaker pivots from vehicles with traditional internal combustion engines to electric cars and trucks, which may require different capabilities.
“We continue to align our workforce with the critical skills required to deliver our products, services and the Ford+ plan,” the company said. “As part of the ongoing management of our business, we will continue to align our staffing to meet our future business needs and plans.”
The automaker said affected employees and non-Ford employee agencies were notified Wednesday — the same day the automaker reported a net loss of $3.1 billion, up Rivian Automotive.
The cuts, which will be completed by the end of the week, come less than two months after Ford announced it was reorganizing operations to separate its electric and internal combustion engine businesses into different entities within the automaker.
Ford said eligible employees would receive continuation of benefits and severance pay of up to nine months’ pay based on service and “career transition services.” A spokeswoman did not want to estimate how much the packages will cost the automaker.
The job cuts, first reported by the Detroit Free Press, affect only about 1% of the company’s approximately 31,000 US employees. At the end of last year, Ford employed 186,769 people worldwide, of which 90,873, or 48.7% of the hourly and salaried employees in the US