Ford Motors plans to cut up to 8,000 jobs to boost its EV growth

Automobile behemoth Ford Motor Co. is planning to cut as many as 8,000 jobs in the coming weeks as the 119-year old automaker attempts to boost profits to fund its push into the electric-vehicle market. The attritions will come in the newly created Ford Blue unit responsible for producing internal combustion engine vehicles along with other operational functions in the company, Bloomberg reported.

The job cuts and layoff plans may come in phases and are likely to begin this summer. 

The latest move marks a major step in Ford’s CEO Jim Farley’s plan to cut $3 billion of costs by 2026. According to various media sources, Farley has said that cutting staff is a key to boosting profits, which has been in a lull on its electric Mustang Mach-E and other EV models amid rising commodity and warranty costs.

Farley said at a Wolfe Research auto conference in February that [Ford] has too many people and firmly believes that their ICE and BEV portfolios are under-earning.

In March, Farley radically restructured Ford and set the historic carmakers into two initiatives - ‘Ford Blue’ to focus on traditional vehicles and Electric vehicles unit ‘Model E’ to scale up EV offerings in the automobile markets.

The changes led to Farley boosting spending on EVs to $50 billion and supported the plan to build 2 million battery-electric vehicles annually by 2026, after selling just 27,140 in the US last year. Last month, Ford’s EV sales rose 76.6% from a year earlier as it rolled out the hot new electric F-150 Lightning pickup.

“As part of this, we have laid out clear targets to lower our cost structure to ensure we are lean and fully competitive with the best in the industry,” Chief Communications Officer Mark Truby said in a statement.