Ford Motor Co. is hiring new workers...

Ford Motor Co. is hiring new workers for the first time since the layoffs of the early 1980s, the trade journal Automotive News has reported. Ford is also using hiring techniques learned from foreign auto makers who have U.S. factories--methods such as intense testing, screening and interviewing. The hiring process now takes as much as a month, compared to the old days when a worker hired on Friday would be on the assembly line by Monday. The company earned an industry-record profit in 1987 and in the first quarter of 1988.