End of the road for diesel and petrol industry as Ford cuts 4000 related jobs in Europe

AMERICAN carmaker Ford announced it will cut almost 4000 jobs across Europe as it grapples with the increasing cost of manufacture and changes to the motoring industry in an announcement made on Wednesday, February 15.

The majority of the positions cut will be in Germany with 2,300 redundancies expected. Another 1,300 of the positions cut will be in the UK, with the rest of the jobs cut in other European countries.

The Detroit-based manufacturer said it made the decision as it tries to transition to a greener model and moves away from petrol and diesel engine production. The majority of jobs cut in the announcement are in engineering positions, which account for around 2,800 of the jobs cut, while a further 1000 will be cut in administrative roles.

Ford is set to retain an engineering team of around 3,400 workers in Europe who will work on adapting designs created in the USA to a European market.

Martin Sander, the head of electric operations in Europe explained the changes saying ““We are moving into a world with less global platforms where less engineering work is necessary”.