DEARBORN, MICH. - A top Ford Motor Co. executive said Wednesday that the company met its goal of cutting 15 percent of its North American salaried costs by Aug. 1.
Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, wouldn't say how many salaried workers will leave, but he confirmed that the company met its goal. Several thousand of Ford's 23,800 white-collar workers in North America were expected to leave through a combination of layoffs and attrition.
Before the latest round of cuts, the automaker said it had trimmed its white-collar workforce in North America by 10,800 jobs since the end of 2005, mostly through attrition, early retirement offers and voluntary buyouts.
Ford has been cutting jobs and scaling back U.S. production as conditions in the domestic market continue to deteriorate. U.S. auto sales were down 11 percent in the first seven months of this year; July sales were the worst in 16 years.
Ford has lost $23.9 billion in the past 2 1/2 years and has had to mortgage its assets to stay in business as the U.S. auto market has shifted away from profitable trucks and sport-utility vehicles to more fuel-efficient models.
That is one reason the company opted to postpone the scheduled 2009 closing of its St. Paul manufacturing plant by two years. The Ranger pickups built there have seen a jump in sales because of their fuel economy.
Fields said he can't predict when the industry will hit bottom, but he said that Ford is monitoring the situation and will adjust if needed.
"There's a lot of conflicting business conditions out there, things that are just affecting the customer," he said, citing the recent drop in oil prices but continuing troubles in the banking sector.
Fields said internal measures and independent studies by J.D. Power and Associates and others confirm the company has made vast improvements in quality.
For example, Fields said, Ford reduced warranty costs by $1.2 billion in the past 18 months, and its newly launched vehicles now have fewer quality problems than the outgoing models they're replacing.
"Good is not good enough for our products going forward," he said.
