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Ford To Cut North America, Asia Salaried Workers By 10 Percent (reuters.com)
Ford is planning a major round of layoffs that will cut up to 20,000 jobs around the world, according to reports published Monday. From a report: Ford plans to shrink its salaried workforce in North America and Asia by about 10 percent as it works to boost profits and its sliding stock price, a source familiar with the plan told Reuters. A person briefed on the plan said Ford plans to offer generous early retirement incentives to reduce its salaried headcount by Oct. 1, but does not plan cuts to its hourly workforce or its production. The move could put the U.S. automaker on a collision course with President Donald Trump, who has made boosting auto employment a top priority. Ford has about 30,000 salaried workers in the United States. The cuts are part of a previously announced plan to slash costs by $3 billion, the person said, as U.S. new vehicles auto sales have shown signs of decline after seven years of consecutive growth since the end of the Great Recession.
"as it works to boost profits and its sliding stock price,"
Ugh... why can't businesses go back to the model of taking care of their employees and figuring out how to build better products to increase profits and their stock instead of always going for the short-term solution of axing payroll....
If they want to avoid the ire of our President when they only lay off Americans. It sounds like I'm joking but I'm not - this is the type of perverse unintended consequences that government intervention brings.
It's not really tech significant. But it is a significant economic indicator of the auto industry. The boom of car buying seems to be coming to a halt.
Comrade Trump wants to plan the economy, but the poor guy is nearly a century late for the Bolshevik revolution. People are probably wondering why Republicans nominated what would turn out to be the furthest-left president since FDR. It started like this...
Republicans used to try to trick voters into thinking they were conservatives, because Democrats were trying to establish the liberal brand. It was sort of working out (for Democrats, though less so for Republicans) until 2008. That year, a Republican named Obama infiltrated the Democratic party and won the presidential election. A small number of voters got upset (remember those "Occupy Wall Street" losers, who would perform protests but not a single one of which could be bothered to campaign for elections, or even vote in them?), but mostly, people didn't notice.
This caused a problem for Republicans, though. They had a conservative Democrat president, whom they had to oppose, and they didn't have any candidates as far to the right, who could mock Obama's "liberalism" with their superior conservativism.
There was only one thing to do. They switched to left -- mock Obama's conservativism with their superior liberalism. Trump shined with his New Deal. He was going to Make America Great Again, like his forebears in 1933.
I get why they did it, but does anyone know why all the right/left voters still swear allegiance to the same parties they used to? Lefties now vote for right-leaning candidates, and righties now vote for left-leaning candidates. It's a strange situation and nobody can explain the voter perspective. Why did people with gunracks vote for a communist? Why did people in tie-dye vote for The Man (Hillary)? It's so weird!
When I hear of cases like this (people getting fired but production being kept the same) I always want to hear about some of the management being fired too. Not only because heartless nature. Management has let the company get overstaffed and have been doing nothing about it. I know that Ford is a large company but surely managers must have noticed having too many people on the shifts or in the offices. Either that or the systems for monitoring don't exist or aren't working.
But by having these extra 20,000 workers on for the past while the company has wasted money paying them when their services weren't needed and now the company is going to pay out a lot more money in packages to get rid of them. If the management didn't let the headcount get that high in the first place then all that money wouldn't have been wasted.
I've seen it at high tech companies too where they grow because they are expected to grow. One place the manager's level was determined by the number of people under them so they hired and grabbed as many projects as they could to get promoted automatically. You aren't doing anyone any favours just to hire them in order to make up numbers. If you have meaningful work that will last a long time then hire them. Otherwise if you have the work make it a temporary job. And if you don't have work then don't hire them at all.
Don't worry, they'll all get jobs as game developers and social media apprentices.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I wonder if they are going to cut jobs at plants that got grants in exchange for keeping so many jobs. If so I want some of the grant money back.
there was a very modest uptick from a decade of horrifically bad sales. But every article I've read has said new car buying is way, way down. I just bought a used car and had to pay damn near new because there's not a lot of inventory. Nobody buying new, so nobody selling used (unless you count stuff that's 10+ years old).
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Isn't there a general auto slump? There was pent up post-recession demand, but now things are settling back to normal demand. Other car makers are cutting also.
Table-ized A.I.
You mean like the C-Max Energi, the Focus Electric and the Fusion Hybrid?
Get state governors to give Ford tax breaks to keep the employees and (effectively) let the employees pay for their own jobs - like Pence did in Indiana for Carrier. Problem solved. /sarcasm
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Most engineers (software, mechanical etc) are salaried. People 'on the line' are hourly where wages, positions and promotions are "protected" by unions.
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'president' Trump for all your hard work at divulging Top Secret information to the Russians.
Trump is a traitor and anyone who voted for Trump is also a FUCKING TRAITOR!
First.... No he didn't. The National Security Adviser was in the meeting and didn't agree that anything classified was inappropriately disclosed to the Russians... Second, this is all based on an "anonymous source" who blabbed to the press for reasons we don't know (It could have been made up even). Third, the president has the authority to disclose any classified information he chooses to whomever he chooses because all of the authority to classify information flows to the holder of the office.
So calm down, take a deep breath and relax.
BTW.. Did you hear about the DNC staffer who was murdered in DC about a year ago? Looks for all the world like this DNC staffer was the source of the DNC E-mail dump to WikiLeaks who offered a reward for information about who killed him ($20K).... This is a MUCH bigger story...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
And too many years on the subsidized lease booze wagon. All the lease returns stacking up in the used inventories are killing sales.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
No, this is the type of perverse, unintended, but perfectly predictable consequence that electing a fucking sociopathic narcissistic discusting mororic mentally unstable piece of shit as your fucking president brings.
But Trump said he'd make all those big companies keep their jobs here! Don't tell me he was fibbing!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Yep, combined with the glut of used cars after the dearth of them from that pile of shite that was Cash for Clunkers. Since people bought many more new cars than normals and/or leased them, the amount of used cars currently on the market in decent shape is higher than it would otherwise have been.
New cars have at least kept-pace with the inflation in personal income, and on top of that there's a lot more other competing things that people feel they have to have. In the late seventies you had electricity, phone, rent or mortgage, possibly natural gas, municipal utilities like water and sewer, and probably some insurance. Now you still have all of those, plus pay-TV, Internet, cell phone in addition to or replacing regular land line phone. You've added 20% more expenses, it makes sense that somthing's gotta give, and that may well be replacing vehicles.
It's further exacerbated by competition in the auto market forcing quality to improve. More European brands appeared, Japan joined the party, and then Korea showed up with their own offerings. Cars used to be lucky to reach 100,000 miles, now a car that doesn't reach 200,000 miles is a bad car. Given that a moderately-priced car is close to $30,000 it's not unreasonable to expect cars to last a long time, so new car buyers don't need to buy them as often as they might once have.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
What happened to the world that layoffs became equivalent with increasing profits? One generation ago, layoffs were a sign that a company was in serious trouble, profits were down and growth was negative. Layoffs were what the directors did if the alternative was to file for bancruptcy. They would be a bad message for investors and stock price would drop. Mass layoffs were a typical sign of a company about to fold.
Today, by the logic of investors, you should fire all your workforce to increase profits to infinity!
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Slashdot has always had the best trolls even if they cut & paste the same stuff. I feel like they are under-appreciated. I for one enjoy the chuckle.
A top-poster?
I thought those died out with usenet.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If leasing companies don't roll the depreciation into the monthly payments wouldn't they be running at a loss?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm not exactly sure how this is nerd news.
Shouldn't nerds take an interest in things going on in the world? And is it not natural then to discuss these things in whichever forums attract many people like yourself? Despite the sort of comments you come across on /. from time to time, most of the readership is above average intelligent, and intelligent people are also interested in what happens in the world outside their narrow interest.
This is a pretty typical corporate strategy to reduce expenditures, and if it's based on things like wilful retirement bonuses and severance bonuses for those not eligible for retirement yet, then it's pretty benign and almost a non-story even in business circles. It's a way to reduce the number of top earners without generating a lot of ill-will, people get to retire early, they get some bonus for it, generally most employees aren't unhappy with the arrangement.
I don't think it is a good thing for society, pushing people into what is effectively early retirement. Those top-earners are often in their 50es, which is when most skilled employees are at the top of their game in terms of experience and understanding of their trade; because most companies don't want to hire older people, they will find it hard to find a job - they will either be considered too old or too overqualified. This means that companies are depleting their knowledge- and skills base, and society gets the burden of having a growing population of unproductive, highly skilled people, who could still be contributing to economic growth. IOW, companies that do this are hurting society's overall productivity and themselves in pursuit of short-term profit. Is that wise?
Ford Exec A to Ford Exec B: "Hey, let's give even more money to people who do no work for us at all, by getting rid of people who actually do work for us!" Exec B to Exec A: "Brilliant! That should help our stock price temporarily, until reality sets in, and we have to find people to do the actual work again." Exec A to Exec B: "We'll just outsource those jobs to low-wage countries, further undermining the US economy, but who cares?!? Some trust-fund brats will make EVEN MORE MONEY DOING NOTHING!!" Exec B to Exec A: "And us suits too! Don't forget that we'll come out ahead in all this too!" Exec A to Exec B: "A toast! To fucking over the US economy for our own short-term gain!" Exec B to Exec A: "Cheers!"
Hah, says the trollflake.
Hey, I like that... "trollflake".
(checks google)
Aw crap, I wasn't the first to think of it.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Was due to the fact Obama had that stupid "cash for clunkers" program. People traded in cars that were destroyed, eliminating the used (sorry pre-owned) car market. In a few years, people traded in cars, boosting the used car market, and propping up the new car market. Now, people are starting to hang onto their cars for 6,7 years or more. Plus, the NEW cars, even the so called "cheap" ones, are in the 20,000 dollar range! My dad was a car salesman for over 30 years. In the sixties, you could by a BRAND NEW Truck for 2,000 dollars, a "hot rod" for less than 4,000 dollars. Now, a "pick up truck" will run a minimum of around 30,000 (full size). Vehicles are overpriced, thanks in part to the greedy corporations, unions, and government regulations.
and 2 junk EVs, combined with a gas burning hybrid has what to do with good EV sales rising, while gas burners go down?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Or did the media events on how he saves jobs lost their mojo?