About 4,000 Ford Motor Co. hourly workers at former Visteon Corp. plants have taken buyout and early retirement offers, a Ford official said Monday.
The deadline for workers whose plants are run by Automotive Components Holdings LLC to take the offers was Friday.
Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields said in a conference call with reporters and industry analysts that about 40 percent of about 10,400 former Visteon workers agreed to leave the company under the offers.
The acceptance rate was slightly better than the company had expected, Fields said.
Earlier this year, Ford took the plants back from Visteon and formed a holding company. Visteon, Ford's former parts wing, was spun off in 2000.
Ford wants to sell or close all 11 of the holding company's plants by the end of 2008.
Similar buyout and early retirement offers have been made to all 75,000 Ford hourly workers as the company tries to reduce its manufacturing capacity to match lower consumer demand for its products.
Ford is hoping that up to 30,000 workers will sign up.
“Clearly we don't expect a 40 percent take rate on the Ford hourly side,” Fields said.
“Nonetheless we'll see how it goes.”
Ford workers have until Nov. 27 to request the offers.
Ford says it will shutter 16 plants, but it has yet to identify nine of them.
