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Ford has announced it will slash a total of 3,800 jobs in Europe, including 1,300 in Britain over the next three years as part of a major restructuring programme. The US car manufacturer is reducing development staff, as it faces an uncertain economic future and prepares for the transition to electric vehicles. The global carmaker said 2,800 engineering roles will be axed by 2025, and around 1,000 jobs in its administrative, marketing, sales and distribution teams across Europe are set to go.

The majority of job cuts will take place at its research site at Dunton in Essex.

Several hundred back-office positions are also expected to be eliminated at various locations across the country. However, production sites in Halewood, Dagenham, and Daventry will be unaffected.

The announcement comes comes less than two years after Ford closed its engine plant in Bridgend.

Tim Slatter, chairman of Ford of Britain, said: “Here in Europe we’ve got a pretty difficult economic situation, and the outlook is uncertain.

“High inflation, higher interest rates, the ongoing war in Ukraine, cost of energy and so on.”

Mr Slatter added job cuts are part of the company’s major transformation towards electric car production. By 2030, it expects all the cars it builds in Europe to be fully electric.

Martin Sander, the general manager of Ford Model in Europe, said: “These are difficult decisions, not taken lightly. We recognise the uncertainty it creates for our team, and I assure them we will be offering them our full support in the months ahead.

“We will engage in consultations with our social partners so we can move forward together on building a thriving future for our business in Europe.”

Ford said that the reorganisation will open the door for a lucrative future and allow it to compete with rival automakers in Europe, a continent that has had considerable economic and political difficulties.

Workers in Germany and the UK are the hargest hit by the plan, with about 2,300 and 1,300 positions to be eliminated respectively over the next three years.

Around 2,300 jobs will be lost at the carmaker’s Cologne and Aachen sites in Germany, 1,300 in the UK, and 200 in the rest of Europe, according to the company, which added that the reductions would be achieved through voluntary programmes.

The news comes as a shock to unions, who predicted in late January that the worst-case scenario would result in 2,500 job losses in product development across Europe and another 700 in administration.

During the company’s earnings call in early February, Chief Financial Officer John Lawler stated that the company would be “very aggressive” in cutting expenses in manufacturing and supply chain operations.

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Productivity of engineers in Europe was 25-30% lower than it should be, Mr Lawler also said at the time.

Martin Sander, president of Ford Germany and Europe’s passenger electric vehicle (EV) chief, said the US group will keep about 3,400 engineers in the area to improve on the fundamental technology offered by their American counterparts and adapt it for European customers.

He said: “There is significantly less work to be done on drivetrains moving out of combustion engines. We are moving into a world with less global platforms where less engineering work is necessary. This is why we have to make the adjustments.”

The automaker’s electrification plan hasn’t changed, according to Mr Sander, with its objective to provide an all-electric fleet in Europe by 2035.

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