Ford Moves To Retain And Expand Workforce With $4.7B In Investments

With so many American businesses struggling to find staff right now, it should probably come as no surprise that Ford is making a series of announcements today that it hopes will help retain the workers it has and add 6,200 more. Ford is investing $3.7 billion in plants in three states, reconfirming production plans for two models, expanding EVs and adding another new commercial vehicle.

Among the assembly plant investments, none were particularly surprising. On the internal combustion side of the business now known as Ford Blue, the Flat Rock and Wayne assembly plants are getting new tooling and upgrades to support the production of the redesigned Mustang and Ranger coming in 2023. The Rouge Electric Vehicle Center where the F-150 Lightning electric pickup is being built is also getting money to support the previously announced expansion that will enable a 150,000 unit annual production run rate by mid-2023. The Michigan plants will get $2 billion.

The Kansas City assembly plant where the fullsize Transit and e-Transit vans are built will also be getting a capacity expansion with a third shift being added. Finally, the Avon Lake assembly plant in northeast Ohio is getting $1.5 billion to support production of a new electric commercial vehicle. The Ohio plant currently produces Econoline cutaway chassis that are used for building shuttle buses and medium duty trucks. Ford isn’t saying what type of EV will be produced, but the most likely candidates are a compact next-generation Transit Connect which is currently imported from Spain, the addition of the midsize Transit Custom which isn’t currently sold in North America or something larger than the Transit which could better compete with the new vans from Brightdrop and Rivian.

As part of its effort to retain its workforce, Ford is converting 3,000 temporary workers across multiple plants to full-time union status. Those employees will see an immediate bump in pay as well as full benefits. The plant investments are also expected to lead to 6,200 new UAW jobs across the five assembly plants and some parts plants.

Ford is also investing $1 billion across its production network to improve the environment for employees. This will include EV charging facilities and improved lighting in parking lots, healthier food in cafeterias and break rooms and more.

One topic that Ford Blue president Kumar Golhatra declined to address is whether the employees at the new Blue Oval City assembly plant in Tennessee or the three BlueOval SK battery plants will be automatically getting union representation. During a conference call Golhatra would only say that Ford supports the workers right to choose whether they want to be represented and would not say if Ford would actively support an organizing drive. All four of those new factories are located in so-called right to work states.