Now It's Ford's Turn

I've reported a couple of times on the job losses in the auto industry at General Motors, and now it's Ford's turn to bite the bullet:

Ford Motor Co., the nation's second-largest automaker, said Monday that it will cut 25,000 to 30,000 jobs and idle 14 facilities by 2012 as part of a restructuring designed to reverse a $1.6 billion loss last year in its North American operations.

The cuts represent 20 percent to 25 percent of Ford's North American work force of 122,000 people. Ford has approximately 87,000 hourly workers and 35,000 salaried workers in the region.

Plants to be idled through 2008 include the St. Louis, Atlanta and Michigan's Wixom assembly plants and Batavia Transmission in Ohio. Windsor Casting in Ontario also will be idled, as was previously announced following contract negotiations with the Canadian Auto Workers. Another two assembly plants to be idled will be determined later this year, the company said.

It's not a good time to have your livelihood depend on the U.S. auto industry.

Funny thing, though. I spent way too many hours this weekend watching the Barrett-Jackson auto auction from Scottsdale, AZ, where the pride of U.S. automaking was paraded across the block and sold for big bucks. One guy paid $600,000 for the rights to the first 2007 Shelby Mustang, and another paid $4,000,000 for this:

It's a 1950 GM Futureliner Parade of Progress Tour Bus, and was the top seller of the weekend.

Will the U.S. auto industry ever regain the prominence it once had? It will be pretty hard to be competitive with the rest of the world if automakers continue to be hamstrung by the overly generous union contracts that are now strangling the companies, and the government regulations which make cars more and more expensive to build.

UPDATE: DaimlerChrysler joins Ford and GM in announcing job cuts.