Ford cuts 580 salaried, agency jobs in the U.S.

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday said it is cutting 580 salaried and agency jobs in the U.S. as it reorganizes under two new divisions.

The automaker is eliminating about 350 salaried and 230 agency positions on U.S. engineering teams, according to a spokeswoman. Ford alerted affected employees earlier Wednesday.

"We continue to align staffing around the critical skills needed to deliver our products, services and the Ford+ plan," a Ford spokeswoman said in a statement.

The job cuts were reported Wednesday by the Detroit Free Press.

Ford this year separated its business into two divisions to focus on gasoline and battery-powered vehicles. Executives at the time did not rule out job cuts.

"There's going to have to be a change in the skill mix," Kumar Galhotra, president of the Ford Blue division, told investors in March. "We will reduce skills in certain areas, and we'll have to invest more in other areas. So, nothing's off the table and we're going to work with our employees with all our partners to do this in a very integrated way."

CEO Jim Farley has said Ford needs different talent as it looks to be a leader in the connected and electric vehicle space.

The job cuts came the same day Ford reported a first-quarter net loss of $3.1 billion.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect figure for agency job cuts. Ford is planning to cut 230 of those positions.