Melbourne, Feb 6 – Three hundred Ford workers will lose their jobs in June as the car company reduces production at its manufacturing plants here as it prepares to cease manufacturing.
Ford Australia director of communications Wes Sherwood said the company briefed union representatives and its manufacturing team on Thursday morning.
“We are continuing to match production with demand and that will mean we are reducing production by about a third in June with related job losses,” Sherwood told the Australian Associated Press (AAP).
He said the number of job losses would be in line with the level of production, meaning about 300 positions.
“We’ll continue to work with the teams to get into the exact details but it will be about 300,” he said.
Workers at the manufacturing plants in Geelong and Broadmeadows, in Melbourne’s north, will be affected.
Sherwood said the exact numbers at each site were still being worked out.
Ford announced last May that it would cease local manufacturing in October 2016, resulting in the loss of 650 jobs at its Broadmeadows plant and 510 at the Geelong plant.
At the time Ford Australia president and CEO Bob Graziano said the cost of manufacturing cars in Australia is uncompetitive.
Sherwood said Ford currently has about 1,500 salaried employees including 1,000 engineers.
– Bernama
