Ford considers further job cuts

Workers in manufacturing at Ford Australia face an uncertain future, with the company shortly to decide whether to reduce the workforce building Falcon and Territory for the local market.

Sinead Phipps, Public Affairs Director for Ford Australia, told motoring.com.au that as yet no such decision had been made, but the company met with the union last week to advise that seven 'down days' were programmed for next month.

"There's been a fair amount of media speculation today, following the story that the Herald-Sun ran this morning," she said. "We've made no decisions on jobs. We have confirmed for the union last week, when we met with them as part of our usual monthly market update that we'll be taking seven down days in the month of July.

"And we're looking at how we manage our production schedules for the rest of the year. That may include taking other down days, it may include implementing a down-balance, but we have made no decision on that at this stage."

"Down-balance" means job cuts, in effect, but Ms Phipps could not provide a deadline for any such decision along those lines and categorically would not discuss the numbers at risk of losing jobs among Ford's 1800-strong manufacturing staff if the decision is unfavourable.

"It's a business decision that we need to make," she said. "Obviously we have a pretty good relationship with our union. We're actually going through our enterprise bargaining negotiations at the moment, so we're talking to them very regularly but we don't have an expectation as to when we would make that decision at this stage."

Ford issued a statement in response to the media speculation this morning, clarifying that Territory sales had risen 70 per cent since this time last year, but that growth in sales of the SUV weren't enough to offset the decline in Falcon sales over the same period — a decline the company estimates to be 25 per cent, year on year. In the statement the company also notes that sales of Holden's Commodore (with Sportwagon included) have declined by about 24 per cent during the same reporting period.

As a car-building enterprise, Ford has actually sold 360 more Falcons and Territory's combined this year than for the year to date, 2011, according to VFACTS. But the Territory's surge in popularity stems from the new diesel V6, which is imported rather than built in the company's engine plant in Geelong. That hurts the manufacturer's profitability as a cost centre. Holden starts from a higher sales base, but expressed in sales numbers, Holden's Caprice, Commodore and Ute have declined by 4623 units combined. Cruze, built on the same production line in Elizabeth, has added a sales increment of just 438 units.

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