Additional 4,000 Jobs to Be Cut by Ford

Ford Motor Co., facing a deepening financial crisis, said Friday that it planned to eliminate 4,000 salaried jobs, or 10% of its North American white-collar workforce, as part of a larger restructuring plan.

A majority of the job cuts -- announced to employees in an e-mail distributed by Mark Fields, president of Ford’s Americas business -- will be made in the first quarter of 2006, spokesman Oscar Suris said.

The cuts will come through attrition, layoffs and the elimination of some agency and contract positions, Suris said. They will be in addition to the 2,750 job losses already announced by the automaker this year.

Ford lost $284 million in the third quarter and its automotive division is in the red. Its North American vehicle operations have lost more than $1.4 billion before taxes so far this year.

The company’s shares have dropped more than 40% since the end of 2004. They hit $7.57 on Thursday, the lowest in more than two years, before rebounding 60 cents Friday to $8.40.

Ford Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr. said last month that the automaker would announce its long-awaited restructuring plan -- dubbed “Way Forward” -- in January.

He also warned that the plan would include “significant plant closings” to help slash costs in North America. The U.S. headquarters of Ford’s import brands -- Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover and Volvo -- are in Irvine, but no cars are made there.

Fields and his team are expected to present the restructuring plan in December.

Ford, like rival General Motors Corp., has been squeezed by intense competition in the U.S. market and by a dramatic slowdown in sales of cash cows such as sport-utility vehicles because of high gasoline prices. The two automakers are also facing higher costs and a cut in their credit ratings to “junk” status.