Ford Motor Co. will temporarily lay off about 2,000 hourly workers at a Michigan plant while overhauling it to produce new versions of a popular truck and sport utility vehicle.
The employees, located at the company’s Michigan Stamping and Assembly Plant in Wayne, will be out of work from May 7 through Oct. 22, the automobile manufacturer said in a notice filed with Michigan’s government.
The factory will be undergoing “extensive retooling” required to build the midsize Ranger pickup, which is returning to Ford’s lineup in 2019, and the Bronco sport utility vehicle, which will be available in 2020, the company said.
Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford’s new CEO, Jim Hackett, is focusing on electric vehicles, self-driving technology, and improved manufacturing techniques, as sales of traditional sedans slide in the U.S. while buyers focus on SUVs and trucks. Revenue from cars slid 14.2 percent in the U.S. in 2017, the company said. Sales of SUVs and trucks climbed 2.9 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively, in the same period.
The union representing the affected workers, the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.
How the company’s prospects will be affected by tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent that President Trump has proposed on steel and aluminum, used heavily in U.S. automobiles, isn’t immediately clear. Mark LaNeve, vice president for U.S. market sales and service, told analysts last week that the carmaker has to price its vehicles to the market, and that raw-material prices typically “sort themselves out over time.”
So far, the president has stood by the proposed tariffs despite a backlash from both members of Congress and some corporate CEOs, who said they risked a trade war and would drive up prices for consumers.
Ford’s stock price has fallen 15 percent this year to $10.58, nearly twice the decline of competitor General Motors. The broader S&P 500 has climbed 1.9 percent in the same period.
