One is the sole income provider for their household. Another pair, a husband and wife, moved to Hardin County, Kentucky, for the job opportunities at Ford. They both worked at the factory. Now the home they’re in contract on will have to wait, maybe forever.

Ford reportedly lost $13 billion over just two years on its EV ventures, including the Kentucky battery plant, coined BlueOval SK

Now, Ford announced it plans to cease F-150 Lightning production for the time being.

It will relaunch the next-gen Lightning as an EREV. That’s an extended range plug-in hybrid.

In the meantime, it will retool the Kentucky plant to supply batteries for the electric grid, not vehicles.

It’s a huge financial shift in light of the automaker’s struggle to bring profitable, affordable, and desirable EVs to market. Other carmakers like GM have felt the same pain. Most U.S. carmakers, including Ford, are shifting toward hybrids in combo with a return to gas powered cars, which Americans find more accessible.

“I cried.”

“I’m not going to lie to you. I’m completely devastated, because for me, it’s not just me losing my job. It’s both of us losing our jobs and our future and everything that we’ve worked for,” Emily Drueke said.

Reportedly, 1,600 Kentucky Ford workers received a robocall letting them know that their stint at the factory had officially ended. The layoff includes 60 days of full pay plus benefits.

Ford says it plans to hire 2,100 people when the factory reopens

Former employees will have the chance to reapply.

But with hundreds of Hardin County residents now unemployed, and right before the holidays, some are more than a little angry.

After all, they say, the Ford factory and its job prospects seem more like an unsteady mirage right now. With no reopen date set, what are these folks to do?

Halee Hadfield says she was laid off, and is the sole income provider in her family. To her, it doesn’t really matter that Ford says she has a shot at a rehire when the plant reopens, “I have no desire to go work for Ford, because they screwed over everybody that works here and the entire county. And I will absolutely never buy a Ford vehicle ever,” she told WDRB.

While Ford remains optimistic about its necessary shift away from heavy, expensive EVs (and I’m the one who’s calling it necessary, because that’s what it is, however unfortunate everyone finds the fact), factory workers plugged into the line to create them will have to pivot, too.

For Hardin County, the robocalls might temporarily push away some percentage of its residents as folks go chase jobs available “now” elsewhere. After all, it’s very difficult to wait for an employer invite after a layoff without knowing what’s really coming next.