Automaking giant Ford will slash 450 jobs in Australia as it battles falling sales and the global financial crisis, it announced yesterday, taking its total job cuts to 1,400 by 2010.
The job losses, which come as Australia’s economy slows and unemployment numbers rise, represent about 10 percent of the company’s workforce in its plants in the southern state of Victoria.
The latest redundancies will be on a voluntary basis and the company expects that enough employees will sign up for them by the end of the year, Ford Australia chief executive Marin Burela told a news conference.
‘PROACTIVE STEP’
“It’s absolutely critical that we take a proactive step, that we position ourselves for strength in terms of where we’re heading into 2009 and beyond,” Burela said.
“Clearly the economic conditions around the world and certainly some of the things we’re facing in Australia have had a severe impact on us as a business,” he said.
“We don’t take these steps and these actions lightly, but we are committed to working with our employees and our union partners to provide a smooth transition for our people as we move forward.”
Volatile exchange rates, oil prices and the global financial turmoil had all contributed to the decision, Burela said.
“There are many things that are happening around the world. We cannot control exchange rates and we cannot control things that happen externally,” he said, adding that what Ford Australia could control was its staff numbers.
The job cuts follow a strategic review amid a deterioration in the business in recent months are the “right thing to do” to position the company in the environment, he said.
Burela said the redundancies would cover all the company’s operations in Victoria state and would be equally spread between its Geelong and Broadmeadows plants, which together employ about 4,500 staff.
LOWER OUTPUT
The latest cuts came after Ford in August announced 350 jobs were to go from the factories next month, with plans to reduce output by up to a quarter, or about 18,000 cars a year.
In July last year, it announced it would cut 600 jobs by 2010 with the closure of the Geelong engine plant.
Union leaders said the new job losses raised questions about Ford’s continued production of big cars and said the cuts were bad news for the industry, including for parts suppliers.
“Today is disappointing to our members who work on the sites and for workers on the supply chain,” said Steve Dargavel, Victorian state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS