Ford cutting nearly 600 jobs, months after splitting its ICE and EV divisions

Ford Motor is eliminating 580 engineering jobs nearly two months after it split the company into separate divisions for internal combustion engine and electric vehicles. As a part of the corporate restructuring, roughly 350 salaried employees and 230 agency workers' jobs will be cut across a mix of internal combustion and electric vehicle engineering teams, a company spokesperson told Bloomberg. Ford has more than 182,000 employees globally.

The carmaker had announced the reorganization plan in early March, which includes a new division called Model e that is dedicated to developing electric vehicles, software, and connected-vehicle technology. The other division, Ford Blue, is focused on combustion-engine vehicles.

The carmaker is also undergoing a larger streamlining effort called - Ford, that was announced in May of 2021. “We continue to align staffing around the critical skills needed to deliver our products, services, and the Ford plan," a company spokesperson said in a statement. “We are making adjustments in select US engineering teams, which includes some reassignments as well as a reduction of approximately 350 salaried and 230 agency positions."

In a separate development, the carmaker started production of its F-150 Lightning pickup truck at its high-tech Rouge Electric Vehicle Center located within its historic Rouge Complex. It marks a historic milestone for the company as its popular F-Series goes electric. The Ford F-Series has been the US' best-selling truck for 45 years in a row and is second only to the iPhone in revenue among all American consumer products, as per a 2020 study.

The demand for the F-150 Lightning has been unprecedented with 200,000 reservations and the company is ramping up production to a planned annual run rate of 150,000 in 2023. It has geared up a new part of its Rouge manufacturing complex to build 150,000 of the heavily modified version of its best-selling F-150 pickup truck annually.