One day, car companies will be so financially tight, so rock solid on fiduciary grounds, that bad macroeconomic news won't throw the entire industry into a grand-mal seizure. Until that day, we've got what we've got, and that includes Ford Motor's anouncement, today, that it will tighten the screws on its front-office personnel. Following a downgrade of its 2005 earnings forecast (the second time it did so in 2005), the company announced it will lay off 1,750 white-collar workers in North America, eliminate 2005 bonuses for management employees worldwide, suspend 401(k) matching funds for salaried employees and reduce its contractual workforce. Like GM, Ford will likely spend the rest of the year (and likely next) chipping away at a mountain of overhead, in the face of drops in sales and market share. The good news is, we found five bucks on the sidewalk today! Wheee!
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Jalopnik Readers Unite Against Ford s Mercury Division [internal]