Ford to downsize by 7,000 jobs

Ford announced Monday it plans to cut 7,000 white-collar jobs, about 2,300 of them in the United States, as part of a planned restructuring. The cuts amount to about 10 percent of the automaker’s global workforce. The major revamp, in progress since last year, will save about $600 million per year by eliminating bureaucracy and increasing the number of workers reporting to each manager.

In the United States, about 1,500 affected employees have left voluntarily or with buyouts, while another 300 have already been laid off. About 500 workers will be let go starting this week, largely in and around the company’s headquarters in Dearborn, Mich. Auto sales in the United States, where the automakers get most of their revenue, have fallen slightly but still are strong, but Ford must make significant capital expenditures to update current vehicles and develop more for the future.