Ford offers new buyouts to trim U.S. workforce

Ford Motor Co. has offered buyout or retirement incentive packages to all of its 41,000 hourly workers in the United States as it tries to further reduce its factory workforce.

Ford, the healthiest of Detroit's three automakers and the only one to avoid government aid and bankruptcy protection, still has more workers than it needs to produce cars and trucks at current sales levels, said company spokesman Mark Truby.

He wouldn't say how many workers Ford expects to take the packages, which include cash payments and other incentives such as vouchers to buy cars and short-term health insurance coverage.

"We're just going to try to right-size our manned capacity and align it with demand," Truby said.

It was not immediately known if similar packages were being offered toFord's 7,000 hourly workers in Canada.

Ford has 634 blue-collar workers on layoff in the U.S. Under the terms of a new contract between Ford and the United Auto Workers, the employees get most of their pay for a year, depending on seniority, and a portion of their wages for another year before they are removed from the company payroll.

In the past, laid-off workers went intoa "jobs bank" and were paid indefinitely even if their factory had been shut down. But the union agreed to scrap the jobs bank earlier this year, when all three Detroit automakers ran into financial troubles.

Workers offered $50,000, car voucher

The buyout package, offered to workers with at least a year of service, includes $50,000 US cash and the choice of a $25,000 US voucher to buy a vehicle or $20,000 US more in cash. The deal also includes basic health care coverage for six months, Ford said.

Retirement-eligible workers can take the buyout but must wait up to 18 months before retiring.

The retirement package includes $40,000 US for skilled trades workers and $20,000 US for non-skilled employees. To be eligible, workers have to have either 30 or more years of service, be age 55 or older with 10 or more years of work, or 65 with at least one year of service, Ford said.

Earlier this year, only 1,000 workers took similar packages, the company said in July.

Ford started 2009 with 89,000 employees in North America but reduced that number to 80,200 as of Sept. 30 through attrition, buyouts and layoffs.

Truby said the additional offer has nothing to do with the union membership rejecting a second round of contract concessions earlier this year, similar to those made by workers at General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.

In Canada, the company recently struck a labour cost concession deal with the Canadian Auto Workers union, but refused to back down on its earlier announced plans to close a car plant in St. Thomas, Ont.