Ford delays white-collar merit raises, cuts benefits

Ford Motor Co. told salaried workers in an e-mail Thursday that it would delay merit raises and cut some benefits — in addition to reducing costs related to salaried employees by 15%, a move that will result in a still-unknown number of involuntary layoffs at the Dearborn automaker.

Ford also has sent letters to about 100 recent college graduates who had been offered jobs, telling them that their hiring would be deferred indefinitely. Ford is offering the would-be employees $5,000 to compensate them for their troubles.

"The vast majority of the offers are being deferred," Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans confirmed Thursday, declining to say precisely how many. "It's not across the board."

Ford is making these cost-cutting actions in the face of a suffering U.S. economy, which has resulted in an industrywide sales decline and an unprecedented consumer shift out of pickups and SUVs — which are highly profitable to automakers — to fuel-efficient cars.

In an e-mail obtained by the Free Press, Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, said the company aims to have its salaried-related costs reduced by Aug. 1.

"This unfortunately will result in involuntary separations of Ford employees and agency personnel, as well as cost savings through attrition and the consolidation of open positions," he said.

"We won't know the exact number of job reductions until each function examines its business needs and determines how best to meet their specific cost-reduction target." More at Detroit Free Press