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Detroit: Ford Motor has no plans at present for further US plant closures despite a dramatic drop in demand for pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, a top company executive said Friday.
But Joe Hinrichs, group vice-president of global manufacturing, also told reporters on Friday that it makes no sense to have five factories making trucks and sport utility vehicles on one shift each.
Hinrichs said the company's long-term choices are to either add production to the plants or close some of them. The company, he said, plans to honour a commitment to the United Auto Workers during contract talks last year not to close more plants.
"There's no plans right now to do anything different than we committed to," he said after a tour of the plant that makes the Focus small car.
Hinrichs also said the company plans to offer more buyout and early retirement packages on a plant-by-plant basis as it tries to further reduce its hourly work force to match lower demand for its products. "It's clear that we need to reduce more of our hourly work force from a total number standpoint, given where the market and the economy is, and given where our capacity is and where the demand is," he said.
About 4,200 hourly workers - just over half the number the company wanted - took Ford's most recent offers to leave.
Ford makes pickups and sport utility vehicles at factories in Wayne and Dearborn, Michigan, Kansas City and at two plants in Louisville, Kentucky.
Offer: Tracinda's committed
Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda investment company said on Friday it will waive a condition tied to a tender offer for Ford Motor shares, keeping his option open to add to his stake in the automaker.
Shares of Ford rose 2.4 per cent to $6.87 in premarket trade after Tracinda said it remained committed to its tender offer to buy up to 20 million shares of Ford stock at $8.50 each.
- Reuters
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