MANUFACTURING

Whirlpool to Shrink Payroll, Shut 2 Plants: Whirlpool Corp. will eliminate about 3,200 jobs in North America and Europe as it carries out a major restructuring. The plan will save the appliance maker $150 million a year but will reduce fourth-quarter profit by $250 million, officials said. A plastic parts plant in Columbia, S.C., and a clothes dryer factory in Cambridge, Ontario, will be closed in 1995 and about 900 jobs will be eliminated. Also in the next year, 300 manufacturing and management jobs will be cut from eight plants in the South and Midwest that together employ about 18,000 people. The Benton Harbor, Mich.-based company expects to cut 2,000 of 13,000 jobs in Europe as part of a reorganization of the appliance operations it acquired from Philips in 1989.