7 Feb 2014

Ford brings forward job cuts

5:20 am on 7 February 2014

Ford has brought forward hundreds of planned job cuts in Australia, before it quits the country in two years.

Ford's Broadmeadows plant in Melbourne.

Ford's Broadmeadows plant in Melbourne. Photo: AAP

Staff were told on Thursday that about 300 jobs will go from plants in Geelong and Broadmeadows in the state of Victoria by June, the ABC reports.

Ford is blaming the cuts on falling demand for its cars. Geelong worker Anthony Anderson says the decision has left he and his colleagues in limbo.

"The announcement today is probably going to create more uncertainty for the workers down in Geelong and Broadmeadows. The uncertainty of having manufacturing work."

Dave Smith from the Manufacturing Workers Union says the Abbott government must intervene.

"The federal government has to stop this ideologically driven position that it is carrying on with, that it won't support industry."

Mr Smith says the workers who will lose their jobs would have been made redundant when Ford shuts its doors in 2016, but almost all of them wanted to stay until the end.