Ford to Hire 7,000 Workers to Help Manufacture Electric, Hybrid Vehicles
Ford to Hire 7,000 for Electric, Hybrid Cars
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
The Ford Focus Electric car.
The Ford Focus Electric car. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Alan Mulally, chief executive officer of Ford Motor Co., talks about the company's turnaround, top growth markets and plan to hire more U.S. workers. Ford, revealing three new electric or hybrid vehicles to the public today, plans to hire more than 7,000 workers in the next two years, including engineers with expertise in battery-powered cars. Mulally speaks with Suzanne O'Halloran at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Bloomberg Television's "Fast Forward With Lisa Murphy." (Source: Bloomberg)
Ford Motor Co., revealing three new electric or hybrid vehicles to the public today, plans to hire more than 7,000 workers in the next two years, including engineers with expertise in battery-powered cars.
Ford will hire 4,000 factory workers and 750 engineers this year and add 2,500 hourly workers next year, Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas, said today at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Ford plans to recruit engineers at the show, where the company is debuting the Focus Electric car, the C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid and the C-Max Hybrid gasoline-electric wagon today. The automaker has said electric and hybrid vehicles may account for as much as 25 percent of its sales by 2020.
We’ll “show growth not only in our employment numbers but also in our new product offerings,” Fields said today.
The hiring will happen as Ford negotiates a new contract with the United Auto Workers union. The current four-year pact for Ford’s 41,000 U.S. hourly workers expires in September. UAW President Bob King said last week he expects workers to be rewarded for the concessions they gave in the past five years.
“Our negotiations with the UAW are ongoing and the whole discussion is going to be about how we can continue to improve our competitiveness,” Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally told reporters today. “We’re right at the inflection point now with the economy coming back.”
Second-Tier Wage
Ford will pay the new workers it hires this year about $14 an hour, half the wages veteran factory employees receive, Mulally said. That so-called “second-tier wage” is key to keeping Ford cost competitive with rivals, he said.
“It’s very important,” Mulally said, adding that it helps position Ford to be “competitive with the best in the world.”
King declined to say if what he called “the entry level wage” would be included in the next contract.
“That’s all issues we’ll talk about during negotiations,” King said in a brief interview as he toured the auto show with General Motors Co. CEO Dan Akerson and a congressional delegation. King added that the Ford hires are “very, very good news.”
Lower starting wages and other concessions the UAW granted, such as forgoing raises, have enabled the U.S. automakers to reverse a $2,000 per vehicle cost disadvantage they had against the U.S. operations of Toyota Motor Corp. and other Asian automakers, said David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“These companies have switched from a $2,000 per car cost penalty to a $2,000 per car advantage,” Cole said. “Now they’re making money at these depressed sales levels. Just imagine what will happen when sales come back.”
Electric Models
Automakers are developing models powered all or in part by electricity to meet standards such as the U.S. rules for average fuel economy by company of 35.5 mpg in 2016, up from 25 mpg now.
Demand for hybrids has waned. The models that run on batteries and gasoline engines peaked at 3.3 percent of the U.S. market in 2008, when gasoline topped $4 a gallon. With fuel prices down about 25 percent from their peak, hybrids accounted for 2.4 percent of U.S. auto sales last year, according to researcher Autodata Corp. of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.
Hybrids accounted for 1.8 percent of Ford’s U.S. sales last year, even though its Fusion is the most fuel-efficient midsize gas-electric
Ford rose 4 cents to $18.31 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares gained 68 percent in 2010.
Ford said it will set up a booth during the show’s industry days on Jan. 12 and Jan. 13 to recruit engineers with electric- vehicle expertise.
To contact the reporter on this story: Keith Naughton in Detroit at Knaughton3@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jamie Butters at jbuters@bloomberg.net
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