Ford Australia has announced it will slash jobs — and production — at its Broadmeadows and Geelong plants by almost a third as slow sales of its Falcon large family car bite hard.

The company today announced up to 440 workers, mainly from its factories, would be offered voluntary redundancies as part of a massive restructure of its workforce taking place over the next three months.

The number of cars made in Victoria will be cut from an average of 209 a day to just 148 a day from November, with the car maker at first offering voluntary redundancies, starting around the same time, before considering a compulsory program "if the required reductions aren’t reached", the company said in a statement.

Workers at the car company were this morning told of the hundreds of job losses.

The cuts are to be shared equally between the company's Broadmeadows and Geelong plants that employ about 1800 manufacturing workers.

A union official said Ford shut its Geelong production line for 15 minutes this morning as staff were briefed. He said more than 200 jobs would go in Geelong, which would hit the community hard.

The official said staff were not given details about redundancy packages and compulsory redundancies were likely as not enough workers would volunteer to leave.

Ford Australia President and chief executive officer Bob Graziano said the latest cuts to production and jobs had been a "difficult decision" for the company.

He said despite the redundancies, Ford was committed to continuing to make vehicles in Australia.

"We understand that, unfortunately, the impact on our employees will be significant, but implementing this structural change is essential to ensure the longer-term health of the business, which is important for our employees, our suppliers and the communities in which we operate," he said in a statement.

"All employees who take up the redundancy will receive a competitive redundancy package, including training and career counselling; and we will work closely with them and our union partners to help our employees make the transition successfully."

Ford cut 240 jobs at its Australian operations last year.

Earlier this year, Ford received more than $50 million in combined funding from the federal and Victorian governments as part of an $103 million investment by the company that it said would ensure its Victorian operations could continue until at least 2016.

The federal secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Dave Smith, said the job cuts were a "kick in the guts" for workers.

He said it was no surprise that Ford was preparing to lay off workers as the car industry was going through "really difficult times".

"They have a good product but they just can’t sell the passenger sedan and that’s led to more than 400 jobs being lost," he said from a union conference in Perth.

"It’s a kick in the guts and what’s unfortunate this time is that when they go to seek voluntary redundancies they will not get the numbers."

The union official also warned that there would be a flow-on effect to suppliers.

It is believed the union was caught on the hop by Ford's announcement and was this morning scrambling to reach high-ranking delegates to organise a crisis meeting.

As part of the production changes announced today, Ford will build fewer Falcon family sedans and instead concentrate on sales of its more successful Territory soft-roader. According to Ford, the Territory will account for half of the vehicles heading down its production lines.

Mr Graziano said it was better for the company to slash the number of cars it built each day rather than continue the costly business of idling the factories — known in the business as "down days" — to adjust output.

"That adjustment to production allows us to run the plant as efficiently as we can given the volumes that we’re projecting for the mid to longer-term," he said.

"We have to look at our manufacturing based on what we have on a corporate basis. What we work at is a global company, and we have manufacturing locations around the world where we can access great products, and the intent is to have products that deliver our brand attributes of quality, safety, sustainability and technologies at an affordable price.

"At the end of the day it’s all about providing value to the customer and that’s what we’re trying to do."

Asked if longer-term projections would result in even fewer locally-made cars, Mr Graziano said the company was happy with its long-term prospects.

"At this point where we see the market and the segments trending, we’re comfortable that 148 is the number for the future," he said.

Territory sales have spiked since Ford last year introduced a more fuel-efficient turbo-diesel V6 version to address the high thirst of the locally built six-cylinder petrol engine.

The diesel-engined model now accounts for seven out of 10 Territory soft-roaders sold. The Ford Falcon last month slipped out of the top 20 best-selling cars in Australia as buyers fail to warm to a more fuel-efficient turbocharged four-cylinder version introduced earlier this year.

Documents revealed to Drive show that the new four-cylinder version of the large family car has failed to make a showroom impression, with more sold to Ford employees than to private and fleet buyers.

The company is facing a 24 per cent slump in year-on-year Falcon sales and a massive $290 million annual loss, which was announced in May this year.

Premier Ted Baillieu is expected to comment on the job cuts later today.

Source: smh.com.au

440 reasons to be sad about the decision of not building the Ford Focus in Australia.

all these tax payer hand outs to ford and gmh,pay it to the laid off workers in stead.mangment has to get there game and product up to a export standard,we cant aFORD gas guzzling bricks and gold plated spare parts,then the taxes thrown on top,and a carbon tax to make the gold plated parts.no wonder the imports are killing them,they dont have the same costs and no import costs.

+1

ford never had a hand out, they sold off another car brand instead

QUOTE-Earlier this year, Ford received more than $50 million in combined funding from the federal and Victorian governments as part of an $103 million investment by the company that it said would ensure its Victorian operations could continue until at least 2016.

DID I READ IT WRONG?

Another +1 here...

How can Ford be so blind? The focus is doing well, why not build it here? Holden has done it with the cruize and it's going well.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

My bad, i should of read it all

Think of it this way, if you don't inject some money into Ford...more than 440 people would have lost their jobs by now...not just from Ford, but from parts suppliers as well.

You mention gas guzzling bricks, well the 4 cylinder ecoboost is pretty economical, albeit poor for towing. The LPi was great too, extra oomph with minimal change in LPG consumption.

Are people really wanting fuel economic cars or do they just want Euro/Jap designed cars because they want show off their new Audi/VW/Honda/etc to their "friends" due to the prestige of such cars compared to the all so "common" Aussie big cars (Falcon or Commodore)? People are buying faux 4WDs and complain about fuel economy...stupidity.

from what im seeing, all the kindy-soccer moms are driving the chelsea copy 4x4s for the false sense of saftey and the usual people movers.dont see many new big sedans of any make.

They should be sacking their marketing people, not manufacturing.

It isn't the manufacturing side that is letting Ford down, it's the idiot marketing people. Ford has never marketed as well as Holden, and when it hits the bottom line, they sack the builders and keep the marketing people.. how is that for dumbass.

I even asked my old lady her opinion

"Sue, when did you last see a good ford ad?"
"Never"
"What about a good ford ad?"
"Sefton I thought you stopped smoking marijuana?"

I'm not sure if anyones seen nissans new ad in NZ, which features the X-Trail, the GTR (you know the quick bastard that gets from 0-100 in something ridiculous under 3 seconds), and that LEAF electric car.

Well makes me want to buy a nissan doesn't it, plus in my experience they're bloody reliable, but let's not talk about mid nineties r32s and gtir pulsars and the like, by the time they get to the 17-22 group they've been raped.

Ford make bloody good cars though, well if I'm to believe the non existent media hype, last time I saw ford advertise a falcon it was an "all blacks" addition, standard xr6 with some nice mags a racing stripe and leather interior. OMG you see those options? Jesus

Advertise an F6 or a standard bloody falcon for Christs sake, and make sure it's a manual one.
Let people know they can still buy manual big cars, and talk the car up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1Kwoynz ... r_embedded

It's about time Ford did some good advertising, to shout out how good the car's are.

What's the MD's email? Maybe we should all email him & advise him we are disappointed that we have not seen a good new ford advert in a while, and the reason he isn't selling car's is due to that!

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Ford have been hopeless for years but. In late 96/early 97 I went into a couple of Ford dealers and wanted to buy a EL Fairmont Ghia , 5.0 , 5 speed in Black. The finance was provisionally approved from the bank and I knew being a special order it wasnt going to be built quick. I didnt care if it took 6 months to turn up. I wanted it and was preparred to pay for the priviledge and wait.
Fords reply from a couple of different dealers? No. If I want a 5.0 5 speed buy an XR8 and I couldnt have that in black neither.Pity I didnt want an XR8. I wanted the grandpa insurance of the Ghia.
After a lot of drama I finally got the ok to have a 5.0 Ghia built in black IF they had a run of them going down the line at some stage but the 5 speed was out of the question. A dealer fitted conversion wasnt even an option.
I figured if I was spending 40+large on a car it had to be 150% what I wanted before I bought it.
I ended up just telling Ford to shove it and waited a bit and bought the old mans Camaro off him.

Makes you wonder how many other sales Ford have p****d away over the years with their blatent refusal to budge even slightly when someone wants something special and is preparred to wait and pay for it.