Ford’s Brass Indicates Layoffs Are in the Works

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 29, 7:22AM EDT

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Ford’s Brass Indicates Layoffs Are in the Works — © jetcityimage / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Ford management continues a media tour in which it slowly signals layoffs. The most recent example is a comment by its chief financial officer. CFO John Lawler told Yahoo! Finance that “We’re working on reshaping the company to deliver our Ford+ plan, so there are some areas and some skills that we’re going to have to reduce.” In other words, it is not a question of what, but when.

CEO Jim Farley has made related comments, and he would not let Lawler discuss the matter without his permission.

Bloomberg News has reported that Ford will cut 8,000 jobs. Figures that have bounced around the press have been inconsistent.

[nativounit]

Ford won’t give out more information, because it does not have to. And, it may want to put off a morale problem as long as possible, although the rumors do not help.

[wallst_email_signup]

One of the odd things about Ford is that, despite a stock which has been blitzed by Wall Street, top management members have kept their jobs. Shares have lagged well behind global industry leader Toyota. Ford’s stock is down 33% so far this year. Toyota shares have declined 14%. The Standard & Poor’s 500 is off 14.7%.

[recirclink id=1156138]

Ford remains in a position where Wall Street wants to see something definitive about how it can navigate the auto industry’s future. The company has the tools to do so. The new F-150 Lightning proves this. However, stocks do not trade down sharply unless there is a reason.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.