Ford wants to cut 3,800 European jobs in the overhaul of electric cars

Ford will cut 3,800 jobs across Europe, or 11 percent of its workforce in the region, as it reduces its model lineup and prepares to end sales of motorized cars later this decade.

The US automaker, which is set to cut jobs over the next two years, will cut most product development jobs like designers, engineers and testers, while about one in five back-office jobs will also disappear.

It will cut 2,300 German jobs, including 1,700 in product development, while the UK will lose 1,300 jobs, including 1,000 in product development. Another 200 jobs will be lost elsewhere. The company currently employs 34,000 people in Europe, including 6,500 in the UK.

Ford has reduced its supply in Europe, where it is struggling to turn a profit. The brand has banned smaller cars like the Fiesta and Focus from the region and is preparing to launch a range of all-electric models that will be less complicated to develop.

“The amount of [product development] The workload is reduced because of this simplification,” Ford’s UK boss Tim Slatter told the Financial Times.

“Demands on product development activities are decreasing worldwide [because] The reality is that once technology is developed, it is much easier to repeatedly install it in future vehicles.”

In Europe, the company expects to sell only electric cars by 2030 and phase out motorized vans by 2035.

The UK site at Dunton in Bedfordshire, where most of its UK cuts will fall, is responsible for engineering its Transit vans, which will continue to offer hybrids through the middle of the next decade.

The cuts account for just over 40 percent of Ford’s European product development team, roughly in line with CEO Jim Farley’s predictions that the company would need 40 percent fewer staff to develop battery models.

Last summer, Ford cut about 3,000 product development jobs in the US, Canada and India.

Germany’s IG Metall union, which represents 2.2 million German industrial workers, warned last month that Ford’s proposed cuts were “inconceivable” to workers.

It also raised questions about “the future of Ford’s German sites,” including its flagship plant in Cologne, which makes the Fiesta.

Ford is in talks to sell its Saarlouis plant in Germany but has announced it will invest €2 billion at its Cologne site to produce electric models at the plant.

The automaker also announced a £380million investment in its Halewood plant in Liverpool to make electrical components for battery vehicles.

“These are difficult decisions that are not taken lightly,” said Ford Europe boss Martin Sander. “We are aware of the uncertainty this creates for our team and I assure them that we will offer them our full support over the coming months.”

The US company has also cut operations to boost its profitability as it grapples with ongoing global chip shortages and rising costs.

Sander told the FT earlier this year that the region’s electric vehicle division is unlikely to turn a profit before 2025.

UK boss Slatter said the announcement was part of an orderly shift in business and was not a response within the company to last quarter’s poor financial performance.