Proactive Investors - Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) said it will cut 1,300 jobs in the UK in the coming years and others in Europe as it rejigs operations to cope with the shift to electric vehicles.
A total of 3,800 staff will be axed in Europe over the next two years, with the UK layoffs representing a fifth of its workforce in the country.
UK redundancies will be at its Dunton research and development site in Essex, which engineers Ford transit vans.
Factories in Dagenham and Halewood, Merseyside are not set to be affected, nor its Daventry distribution centre.
Most of the disappearing roles will be in product development, amid a shift by Ford to focus on simpler, electric vehicles in Europe, where it struggles to turn a profit.
Hundreds of back-office roles are set to be axed too, in light of the “difficult” and “uncertain” economic situation in Europe, said Ford UK chairman Tim Slatter in a statement.
“These are difficult decisions, not taken lightly,” added European boss Martin Sander.
“The demand on the product development activities globally is reducing,” he said, “the reality is once the technology is developed, it’s much easier to repeatedly install in future vehicles.”
Ford will only offer electric cars come 2030 and is aiming to phase out hybrid and fossil fuel powered vans by 2035.
As part of the European reorganisation, the Michigan-headquartered group has earmarked £380mln worth of investment to transform its Halewood plant from producing gearboxes to motors for 70% of its electric vehicles on the continent by 2026.
It is among manufacturers which have been attracted to the US since the Inflation Reduction Act promised tax breaks and public funding last August.
Ford confirmed would be expanding its US-based EV production earlier this week with a US$3.5bn plant in Michigan, joining the likes of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) in branching out.