Ford Motor Co (NYSE: F) plans to reduce the global staff by about 10% as part of measures designed to increase the profitability of carmaker operations and support the value of its shares, writes The Wall Street Journal.
Ford may announce cuts as early as this week, the newspaper's sources said.
Overall, the company aims to cut costs by $ 3 billion in 2017, which is expected to help it improve its profitability in 2018, even in the absence of sales growth.
Ford shares have fallen by about 40% in 3 years, during the period of Mark Fields as the company's CEO. Ford's capitalization is now well below the market value of General Motors (NYSE: GM) Co. and Tesla Inc.
According to WSJ sources, the reduction will mainly affect employees with a fixed salary. It is not yet clear whether they will affect workers with hourly wages, the sources note. The company plans to offer employees a generous compensation for early retirement, seeking to reduce the staff by October 1.
In total, the global Ford staff has 200,000 employees, half of which work in North America.
"We continue to focus on three priority areas, including strengthening growth engines in our core business, transforming traditionally weak areas of key business, as well as active but reasonable investments in emerging opportunities," the automakers said in a press release.
"Reducing costs and increasing the effectiveness of the operation also remains part of the work. We did not announce any new measures to improve efficiency at the expense of people, and we do not comment on the rumors, "the company said.
The decision of the automaker may be against the policy of US President Donald Trump, who announced an increase in employment in the automotive industry one of the priorities. The number of Ford employees in the US is about 30,000 people.