Weak e-car sales
Ford works council: 2,000 employees are on short-time work
For decades, Ford played a good role in Europe’s car market; the Fiesta small car, for example, sold massively. The company has now switched to electric. But things aren’t going well.
Around 2,000 employees are affected by short-time work at the car manufacturer Ford. This is what the head of the Ford Germany works council, Benjamin Gruschka, told the German Press Agency in Cologne. The news of this measure had already become public on Tuesday evening, but the exact scope was initially unclear. Ford has around 13,000 employees in Cologne.
Short-time work will start next Monday, November 18th, with around 2,000 employees in vehicle production, said Gruschka. This lasts a total of three weeks with interruptions – after a week of short-time work, one week is worked and then another week of short-time work follows. The last week of short-time work is seamlessly followed by the two-week company holiday over Christmas and New Year. “We will start production again as planned on January 6th.”
Traditional Cologne location
Ford has had a factory in Cologne for almost a hundred years, and the company produced a blockbuster with the Fiesta small car. But the Fiesta has been history since last year, the European subsidiary of the US group with its headquarters in Cologne is in a discovery phase: the plug was pulled on combustion engine models and the Cologne location was made electric with an investment of almost two billion euros.
Series production of the Ford Explorer, a compact off-road vehicle, began in June: it is the first electric car that Ford produces for the mass market in Europe. There is now a second electric model from the cathedral city, the Ford Capri.
Demand for government support
But customer interest has so far been below expectations. Ford is not alone in this; other car manufacturers in Germany are also complaining about purchasing reluctance on the market. “Electric cars are currently not selling as well as planned, we have consumer uncertainty,” says works councilor Gruschka and appeals to federal politicians to boost electromobility with funding. “We in Cologne have embraced electromobility, and every unsold car is a problem.”
Ford has already cut thousands of jobs at its Cologne site in recent years. In 2018, the car manufacturer still had almost 20,000 employees in the cathedral city, but now there are almost a third fewer.
dpa
Source: Stern
