Ford may cut 9000 more jobs in addition to 33,600 job cuts so far

Ford, the world's third-largest automaker, may eliminate as many as 9,000 more U.S. factory jobs through its latest buyout offers. The cuts would be in addition to the 33,600 union workers who left through buyouts and early retirements in 2006 and 2007, when Ford lost a combined $15.3 billion. Further reductions may help Ford restore profit by speeding the hiring of new workers who would be paid about half as much as current employees.

Ford's employment fell to 64,000 at the end of last year at North American plants from 99,500 two years earlier. That decline includes the 33,600 UAW-represented jobs shed through the buyout and retirement offers.

- By continuing to build gas-guzzling trucks and SUV's amidst high oil (and hence gasoline) prices, US car manufacturers aren't exactly "helping the cause" so to speak, and the hand of the market will continue to punish them for it. The US car makers have lost billions of dollars, closed many factories, and cut tens of thousands of jobs. The "body count" is piling up, and it is piling up quickly.

There is one last hope for the US automotive industry - it lies not in the car makers but in the relatively new, relatively small, but up-and-coming US battery and ultra-capacitor makers like A123Systems and Altair-Nano (nanotech-based lithium-ion batteries), and Maxwell Technologies (advanced ultra-capacitors). We'll need these folks if we are to switch to a new fleet of electric-powered vehicles, whether plug-in hybrids or pure EV's. I wouldn't count out the Americans just yet - this last hope could pan out - or it might not. We'll see.

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