Ford to cut at least 1,400 jobs in Belgium

DETROIT,Feb 14 Reuters reports that the Ford Motor Co. said on Thursday it plans to cut at least 1,400 jobs in Belgium as part of an overhaul of its operations in the country.

The job losses, at Ford's vehicle assembly plant in the Belgian town of Genk, were announced in a statement by Jan Gijsen, operations of manager of the plant.

They reported that Ron Iori, a spokesman at Ford's world headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, said the Belgian staffing cuts were contemplated in Ford's restructuring announcement in January, when the embattled automaker said it was cutting 35,000 positions worldwide, or about 10 percent of its work force.

Ford is in the process of modernizing the Genk plant in order to produce at least four new model cars there, including the next generation of the Focus and Mondeo sedans that will be introduced in 2004, according to the statement quoting Gijsen.

As part a drive toward greater overall efficiency at the factory, he said there was a ``need to operate with less people.''

He did not go into detail, except to say that Ford hoped to limit job losses at the plant to 1,400 from an earlier potential total of up to 2,400. The company said it could now guarantee at least 1,000 jobs at the plant.

Ford, the world's second-largest automaker, hopes to eliminate the Belgian jobs through a voluntary process over the next two years, the statement said.

As part of the plant overhaul, Gijsen added that Genk's production of Ford's Transit commercial van was being transferred to the company's new Otosan plant in Turkey.