Job cuts at Ford Australia

The Ford Motor Company will ax 640 jobs in its Australian plants as declining sales cause it to cut new car production.

The automobile manufacturer employs about 5,500 workers at two plants outside Melbourne and Ford said the job cuts would be voluntary and come from across the business. Most of the redundancies will take place before Christmas.

Ford spokeswoman Sinead McAlary, however, said at a news conference that Ford was still investing in Australia and still planned to build the next Falcon car.

"It is simply about making our production rates an d the size of our business match the current market demand," she said. Last month, Ford announced it was cutting its daily new auto production from 450 to 360 vehicles, blaming the high cost of gasoline and increased global competition for the demand for large cars.

United Press International