More than a fifth of Ford Australia’s workforce shall be slashed because the automotive producer continues to lighten home operations.
After Ford confirmed the roles of round 400 of its 1800 Australian workers can be lower, union leaders mentioned a lot of the influence can be felt on the Ford Geelong plant in Victoria.
“The majority of these will be in product development and design, with a small number in other functions,” Ford mentioned in an announcement.
“The changes are part of Ford’s global drive to improve efficiency and transform its operations to meet future needs.”
NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw Credit: News Corp Australia
Unions have since blasted the transfer as “just another wave of the previous government’s destruction of the vehicle industry”.
The motoring big mentioned it had begun session with workers and unions on its intention to supply a “separation program” for the 400 employees affected.
The redundancies shall be voluntary and won’t take impact till September this yr.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) mentioned the announcement got here as “disheartening news”.
AMWU automobile trade co-ordinator Vince Pepi mentioned of the 400 jobs affected, about 350 can be white-collar staff and 50-45 can be blue-collar staff.
“Unfortunately, most of the job losses will affect workers in the Geelong area,” he mentioned.
“We understand that this news will be difficult for many workers and their families, and we want to ensure they have all the resources they need.
“We will continue to work closely with our members and their Ford management as the situation progresses.”
This comes eight months after Ford Australia lower 120 contract positions from 2300 employees, adopted by a “voluntary separation program” earlier this yr wherein round 170 product improvement and design workers walked off the job.
NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw Credit: News Corp Australia
In August, Ford introduced it might be reducing about 3000 jobs globally because it continued to transition to an electrical automobile fleet and downsize international operations over the previous yr.
The firm additionally mentioned on Thursday that “Australia will continue to be the centre of development for the Ranger and Everest globally”.
AMWU Victoria state secretary Tony Mavromatis mentioned unions have been now calling on the federal government “to invest in and support” the longer term manufacturing of electrical automobiles.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
