Chief Executive Alan Mulally said the new round of buyouts was negotiated with the United Auto Workers union. In addition, Ford plans to continue to reduce its salaried workforce this year, mostly through attrition.

Mulally said the first round of buyouts would be offered immediately to hourly workers who had been employed at already closed plants in Atlanta, St. Louis, Edison, N.J., and Norfolk, Va. Those offers close Feb. 28.

Employees are expected to leave the company by March 1, Mulally said during a conference call with reporters and industry analysts to discuss the company's 2007 earnings.

Although the plants have been closed, some workers continue to get salary and benefits under the job protection provisions of the company's contract with UAW. Ford said the number of workers left at the plants is small, probably less than 1,000.

The second round of buyouts would go to workers at all other U.S. Ford locations, opening the week of Feb. 18 and closing March 17. Mulally said workers who take packages in this round would likely leave the company starting April 1, with all of them gone by year's end.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told reporters at an event Thursday in Detroit that the union agreed to the packages and knows that Ford wants to bring in more lower-paid workers.

"We knew what we were doing," he said. "We also recognize that the companies need help."

The company said it has reduced its total U.S. hourly workforce by 35,500 since the end of 2005. Ford said it had 99,500 at the end of 2005, and that figure dropped to 64,000 by the end of last year. The buyout offers are being made to the 54,000 hourly Ford workers represented by the UAW.

Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair said the company will continue to reduce its salaried workforce in 2008 "primarily through attrition." The company said the number of full-time salaried workers already has been cut by 10,800 since the end of 2005, from 34,500 to 23,700 at the end of last year.

Leclair said the company would not reveal the number of workers it expects to take the packages until after the buyout offers have closed. He said the packages would be similar to those offered in 2006, with eight choices for workers. The company, he said, has about 12,000 workers eligible for retirement, or about 22 percent of its hourly workforce.

Under the 2006 program, hourly workers were offered eight packages ranging from $35,000 to $140,000, including one package that offered up to $15,000 per year for four years of college tuition. About 33,600 hourly workers left under the 2006 buyout program.

Ford said it will sweeten the packages from the previous round for retirement-eligible workers. Lump-sum incentives to retire will rise from $35,000 in 2006 to $50,000 in the latest round. Skilled trades workers who retire would get $70,000.

This time around, the buyouts will usher in a lower-paid workforce. Under Ford's new contract with the UAW, which was reached in November, Ford may replace workers taking the buyouts with workers who would be paid $14.20 per hour, or about half the wages of a current worker. Under the contract, up to 20 percent of Ford's U.S. hourly workforce may be paid at the lower wages.

Mulally would not say whether Ford expects to reach the 20 percent number. He said the company had no announcements on further plant closures "at this time."

"The real issue is what happens with the economy and the demand," he said. "What we are really doing is sizing our production to the real demand."

Ford also said its straight-time auto assembly capacity has been reduced from 3.6 million vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2005 to 2.9 million in the same quarter of last year, due largely to personnel reductions.

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