Ford Oz Offers Jobs to Sacked GM Holden Engineers

Ford Australia is looking to hire former workers from archrival GM Holden to help it develop new cars for China.

News Corp. Australia reports on its CarsGuide.com.au website that Ford plans to hire 150 GM Holden engineers who lost their jobs last month.

GM Holden cut the first of 200 Melbourne-based engineers that will be let go before Christmas with another 400 engineering jobs to be lost when its closes its factory in 2017.

News Corp. says the hiring will make Ford by far the largest employer of automotive engineers in Australia, with a vehicle-development staff of about 1,200.

China-based Ford Asia Pacific Product Development Vice President Trevor Worthington, in Australia to launch the last locally built Falcon large car, tells News Corp. he would be happy to hire GM Holden’s sacked engineers.

Australian engineers are trained to world-class standards, he says, adding Ford is about to ramp up extra work for foreign vehicles and there is a ready supply of ex-GM Holden workers.

“The growth in our Australian engineering workforce over the next six to eight months…will be about 150 engineers,” News Corp. quotes Worthington as saying.

“We will get the right people for the right job. Whether it’s chassis engineers, powertrain engineers, calibration engineers, instrument engineers…the work is cyclical.”

Worthington says he expects Ford Australia’s engineering workforce to remain stable at about 1,200 employees for the foreseeable future.

The announcement comes as the automaker’s Broadmeadows Assembly Plant launches production of the Falcon FG X and SZ Territory MkII, which went on sale Dec. 1.

Demand is so strong for the new A$55,000 ($46,840) Falcon XR8 performance flagship that Ford is scrambling to double production after several dealers sell out of their initial allocation and the waiting list stretches to March.

Ford planned to build fewer than 1,500 of its XR8 sports sedan over the next two years, about 10% of the Falcon’s sales mix.

“We are definitely looking at increasing XR8 volume. It’s fair to say we’ve been overwhelmed by the customer response,” Ford Marketing Manager David Katic tells News Corp. “It’s now a matter of going back to (parts) suppliers to see if we can increase our orders.”