Ford Spain Losing U.S.-Market Transit Connect

MADRID – Ford’s Almussafes plant in Spain by 2021 will lose annual production of 40,000 units of the Transit Connect it now exports to the U.S.

The automaker will assemble the next generation of the light-commercial vehicle in Hermosillo, Mexico, and export them to the U.S. and Canada under the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Almussafes will continue building 70,000 Transit Connect units for the European market annually. But production of the next generation could be transferred to Turkey, where other models in the Transit range already are being manufactured.

The production shift from Almussafes to Hermosillo means about 400 of the current 7,291 jobs at the Spanish plant will be eliminated, along with 1,200 jobs at nearby suppliers.

Almussafes currently assembles a daily average of 1,850 units of the Kuga (870), Transit Connect (470), Mondeo (340), S-MAX (100) and Galaxy (70) ranges. Almussafes is a flexible plant where all the models are built on the same assembly line.

Last autumn, Ford announced it would make extensive job cuts in Europe. Detailed figures are expected soon.

In Germany alone, the automaker says there is an excess of 5,000 workers of the 24,000 employed there. Layoffs in the U.K. could depend on the fate of Brexit.

Ford already has announced it will close its 850-worker transmission plant in Blanquefort, France, in August.