Barely had furloughed workers at its Flat Rock, Michigan Mustang plant returned to work after a shutdown due to falling demand, Ford announced several more temporary closures in the US and Mexico, saying it had warned previously of such ‘production adjustments’.
The automaker is stopping F-150 pickup truck output for a week at its Kansas City assembly plant though production at the Dearborn plant continues, Reuters reported.
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The F-150 is Ford’s best selling single model but F-series line sales overall were down 2.6% year on year in September to 67,809, according to just-auto data, though year to date volume was up 5.5% to 595,969.
The report said Ford would also cut output of the Escape and Lincoln MKC SUVs at the Louisville assembly plant for two of the next three weeks. There would also be closures at two plants in Mexico – Hermosillo which makes the Fusion and Lincoln MKZ sedans and Cuautitlan, home to North American versions of the Fiesta.
The US market was ‘soft’ in September. Escape sales were off 12% last month, the just-auto data showed, with YTD growth under 1%. Fiesta volume plunged almost 40% with YTD sales down 28%. Fusion sales were down 17.5% and 9.1% respectively though the much lower volume MKZ fared better at -1.7% and -0.4%. Escape sales fell 12% in September but were up 0.8% YTD while MKC results were positive at 2.3% and 3% respectively.
Ford would lay off around 13,000 hourly workers during the temporary shutdowns, the news agency said, with 4,000 in Mexico and 9,000 in the US.
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By GlobalData“During our second quarter financial call, we said we expected the overall retail industry to decline in the second half of the year from the same period last year. We also said to expect to see some production adjustments in the second half – this is one of them. We continue matching production to meet demand,” a Ford spokeswoman told Reuters.
US workers with over a year of experience would get about 80% of their normal pay during the shutdowns as state unemployment benefits and Ford supplemental pay were combined, the automaker said.
