Ford hopes to hold workforce at 2900

FORD Australia says it does not envisage further retrenchments at its Victorian factories, as long as sales rates for its home-grown vehicles do not slip further.

The company’s workforce was reduced by 330 today, including 212 forced redundancies, cutting the payroll numbers to 2900 at the company’s major sites at Broadmeadows and Geelong.

The daily production rate has been scaled back from 209 vehicles a day to 148, which Ford says is in line with its anticipated sales rates for the foreseeable future.

Ford Australia public affairs director Sinead Phipps said: “We have realigned production to where we think demand will be, not just for this year but next year as well.

“So we have our production numbers and employee numbers where we think they need to be, but we will need to keep monitoring the market as well.

“If the market does something different, including if it starts to go back up for large cars, we might need to do something different.

“But at this stage we have set the employee numbers where they think they need to be to match production.”

Left: Ford president and CEO Bob Graziano.

Ms Phipps said the painful process had been completed as smoothly as possible at the factories.

Media representatives stationed themselves outside the premises today as workers entered to hear their fate in private meetings with managers.

Car production was shut for the day to allow for the process behind closed doors in an effort to minimise the public scrutiny on what Ford Australia president and CEO Bob Graziano described as a “very difficult day for all Ford employees”.

“Although we have taken every possible step to find redeployment opportunities within other areas of our business and offered redundancies on a voluntary basis first, it has proven necessary to implement compulsory redundancies as well,” he said.

“As difficult as it is, this action is necessary to ensure that our business is structured appropriately to align with our demand levels and is aimed at ensuring we remain as efficient as possible and continue to provide secure employment for our remaining 2900 employees.

“We appreciate and thank our team members who have all handled themselves impeccably throughout the day and respected the process we have implemented to try and manage it as best we can.

“We will follow up with our departing team members to ensure they have access to all of the support facilities we are providing to assist them to find alternative employment.” Federal opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey was quoted by AAP today as saying the job losses at Ford were proof that protectionism was “not the answer” to car manufacturers’ problems.

Mr Hockey reportedly reaffirmed that a Coalition federal government would do away with subsidies to Australia’s car-makers.

“People are not buying Australian-made cars because they don't want to buy Australian-made cars, and the cars are not meeting their demands as consumers,'' AAP reports him as saying.

''The government gave $34 million to Ford in January this year, the prime minister said this is going to create an extra 300 jobs, (now) 340 jobs have gone.'' Ford Falcon sedan sales are down 26.2 per cent this year, averaging just 1100 vehicles a month.

About 15 years ago, the Falcon averaged more than 6000 sales a month.

Ford had hoped the arrival of a fuel-efficient four-cylinder EcoBoost variant this year would help to stem the sales decline, but despite rave reviews for the new car, it has not been embraced by buyers.

One bright spot for Ford has been sales of its Falcon-based Territory SUV, sales of which are up 16 per cent this year after a facelift and addition of a diesel-powered variant last year.