Washington - Ford chief executive Mark Fields said
Tuesday the automaker was ditching its plans to open a factory in Mexico and
instead expanding a Michigan plant, creating 700 more local jobs.
The next wave of workers in Flat Rock will build mostly
self-driving and electric cars, including a hybrid Mustang. Unlike
manufacturing roles of decades past, though, the jobs will probably require
computer literacy and more than a high school degree.
"The era of the electric vehicle is dawning,"
Fields told his employees this week, "and we at Ford plan to be a leader
in this exciting future."
The new employment opportunities - the tickets to the
middle class - will not look like the old ones. Economists say auto
manufacturing at Ford and beyond will become increasingly automated, resulting
in fewer jobs for more highly skilled workers.
Ford's move became political after Fields expressed
confidence in the business climate under President-elect Donald Trump, and
Trump on Twitter took credit for the company's decision. Both men invoked the
importance of protecting American jobs.
Analysts, though, say Ford's decision stemmed more from
its long-term goals than the new administration or devotion to US workers. The
company aims to invest $4.5 billion in electric vehicles by 2020. (The company
would not comment on the specifics of the 700 new positions.)
"We expect a big change in the next decade on not
only the growing affordability," Fields said, "but also the consumer
acceptance of electrified vehicles."
The Ford engineers, tasked with creating these models,
work in Dearborn, Michigan - 20 miles from the Flat Rock assembly plant. Moving
production to Mexico would have made their jobs harder, said Brett Smith, an
auto analyst at the Centre for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.
"Keeping a new technology near the engineers is an
important thing, at least in the first generation," he said. "That
gives them a lot more control to monitor a system."
Ford's vision for the updated Michigan facility,
meanwhile, meshes with broader industry trends, he said.
"Each iteration of a facility becomes less like old
school manufacturing and more high-tech," Smith said. "That will
ultimately mean fewer jobs. The people will have to keep learning throughout
their careers. It won't be like the old days, when you do the same thing for 40
years."
It's also easier for companies such as Ford to find
skilled workers in the United States, said Mark Muro, who studies economic
policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
"The Mexico platform is essentially a lower cost,
just-good-enough workforce," he said. "It is not a place where
there's a lot of innovation or new product development." (Ford will
continue to make gasoline-powered Focus vehicles at its Hermosillo, Mexico,
plant.)
Read also: Ford bins $1.6bn Mexico plant
Fields was blunt about why Ford changed its mind, cancelling
a $1.6 billion factory slated for San Luis Potosi. "The reason that we are
not building the new plant," he said, "the primary reason, is just
demand has gone down for small cars."
The president-elect has argued that trade policy has
quashed American livelihoods, encouraging businesses to seek cheaper labour in
other countries. He has criticised Ford, General Motors and Carrier on Twitter
for shuttling work south of the border.
A study last year from the Centre for Business and
Economic Research at Ball State University, a school in the manufacturing
heartland, tells a different story. Co-author Michael Hicks, an economics
professor, found that advances in technology caused far more job loss. That's
because automation has enabled factories to produce more goods with fewer people.
WASHINGTON POST