After a disappointing performance in the first half of the year, Ford Motor Co. is considering cutting more salaried workers, a company spokesman said Friday.
Ford spokesman Oscar Suris wouldn’t confirm a report in The Wall Street Journal that said Ford could lay off up to 30 percent of its white-collar work force — about 10,500 of its 35,000 salaried workers — in North America over the next few years.
But he noted that earlier this week, Ford Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair said “nothing is off the table” when asked about possible cuts during a conference call to discuss second-quarter earnings.
Ford already has announced plans to reduce its salaried work force in North America by 2,700 people by the end of this year. It also has said it will reduce the use of agency workers and other purchased services by 10 percent.
But Suris said the company, the nation’s second-biggest automaker behind General Motors Corp., is considering more aggressive measures.
“We have operating challenges that include our cost structure and excessive production capacity, and we have plans to address that,” Suris said.
On Wednesday, Dearborn-based Ford said it earned $946 million in the April-June period versus a profit of $1.17 billion last year. But it lost more than $900 million in North America.
