Ford to cut jobs, won't say how many

News.com.au, 14th October 2008

FORD Australia has confirmed it will cut more jobs from its Victorian workforce as slow sales, but will not say how many, as high fuel prices and its troubled US parent continue to bite hard on its bottom line.

The company has confirmed it is looking at slashing more jobs at its Victorian plants, but will not say how many.

Company spokeswoman Sinead McAlary today said the company was looking at where it could cut costs across all divisions, including engineering, administration, product design, marketing and the factory floor.

The review is tied to Ford's decision in August to slow production of its V6 cars by up to 25 per cent, slashing up to 350 manufacturing jobs at its Geelong and Broadmeadows plants in November.

Ms McAlary said the company was now reviewing its operations to see if there were further associated cost cuts that could be made.

She said Ford employed about 4,700 people at its Victorian plants, 2,300 of whom were factory floor workers and 2,400 in areas such as engineering, administration, marketing and product design.

"We have told employees there will be voluntary separations on top of the 300 to 350 jobs being cut in manufacturing," Ms McAlary said. "We're still working through that process."

She said because the review was not complete and staff had not been told how many jobs may go, reports of numbers of job cuts were speculation that she would not confirm.

Fairfax Media this morning reported Ford was set to slash another 500 jobs in Victoria.

Melbourne Australian Manufacturing Workers Union vehicle division federal secretary Ian Jones later said it would not be productive to speculate on the number of jobs at stake.
"We're constantly in contact with Ford, we'll be continuing to have some discussions with them to see exactly what the numbers are," Mr Jones said.

He said the union was meeting with Ford next Tuesday to get its anticipated sales figures for the rest of the year and did not expect to know anything until the end of the week.

"And we would expect at that meeting we would get some serious data on the jobs."
"I don't think it's going to be small,'' Mr Jones said. "We know there are jobs going - we just don't know the total figure. "These big cars are not selling,'' he said. "The financial crisis globally, to be quite frank, means people are hanging onto their money - the second biggest purchase they make in their life is their car.''

In August, Ford said it would cut 350 manufacturing jobs from next month in a bid to reduce
its annual output by one-quarter, or 18,000 cars.

Last year, Ford said it would close its six-cylinder engine plant at Geelong by the end of 2010, with the loss of 600 jobs, although it has said it would make small Focus cars at its Broadmeadows plant from 2011.