The second-largest U.S. automaker said it will shed an additional 10,000 salaried jobs, finish cutting 30,000 North American factory jobs by 2008, four years sooner than planned, and offer buyouts to all hourly workers. Ford suspended its quarterly dividend for the first time since 1982. The shares plunged 12 percent, wiping out most of the gains for the year. The new cuts speed up steps announced by then-Chief Executive Officer William Clay Ford Jr. in January to "retake the American roadway."

They come on the heels of a surprise $1.44 billion first-half loss. Two weeks ago, Ford hired former Boeing Co. executive Alan Mulally, 61, to replace Bill Ford, architect of a previous failed restructuring in 2002.

"The market has changed so much and this company has lost so much market share that it needs radical surgery," said John Casesa, managing director with Casesa Strategic Advisors in New York. "And that's what this announcement is: radical surgery." The automaker's shares fell $1.05 to $8.04 at 2:41 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They had gained 18 percent this year through yesterday, after a 48 percent decline in 2005. Merrill Lynch changed its recommendation on Ford shares to "sell" from "neutral."

The 10,000 salaried job cuts come in addition to 4,000 posts eliminated before March 31. The combined totals mean Ford is slashing almost 40 percent of its salaried workforce - from car designers to financial analysts to secretaries - in North America.

The company will delay steps such as selling brands or other assets until Mulally has a chance to study such proposals, four people familiar with the strategy said last week. Executive Vice President Mark Schulz, who heads Ford's international operations, said yesterday that Ford's money-losing Jaguar luxury car unit won't be sold.

Ford's worldwide workforce shriveled 16 percent from 2002 through the end of last year. Its share price was $58.69 at the start of 1999, when Bill Ford became chairman. After Ford's announcement today, rival DaimlerChrysler AG cut its full-year profit forecast because of a projected 1.2 billion euro loss ($1.5 billion) at its U.S. Chrysler unit in the third quarter.

Ford, of Dearborn, Michigan, has lost U.S. market share every year since 1995 and today said the slide will continue. The company declared that its turnaround would be led by products, just as it did in 2002. More than 70 percent of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles will be new or "significantly upgraded" before 2009, Ford said.

The automaker yesterday dropped a pledge made in January to earn a profit on its North American automotive operations in 2008. Instead, in recognition of the impact of its first-half losses, the company projects a profit in the region in 2009. Internal forecasts project Ford's global automotive losses may double to more than $8 billion in 2006, four people familiar with the figures said this month.

To help convince investors that its lineup of future products is sufficient to boost market share, Ford will introduce a redesigned version of the Super Duty commercial pickup in the first quarter of 2007, plus an "all-new" F-150 pickup and new compact cars and sub-compacts in coming years. As its closes plants, Ford said it will maintain one shift at its St. Thomas, Ontario, plant to build the Lincoln Town Car. Ford said its North American manufacturing capacity will be cut to 3.6 million cars and trucks by the end of 2008, a 26 percent decline from last year. Management has "concluded that Ford is deteriorating much faster than they had initially assumed, and that's wholesome" said Eugene Jennings, a business professor emeritus at Michigan State University.

"The question now is whether they have the right management team to overcome the inertia that set in when Bill Ford was chief executive."

Ford managers yesterday said the company can fix North American operations without resorting to broader steps. Bill Ford, in response to a question, said going private is "not in our plans." He also said the company's sales ranking in the U.S. "doesn't matter" if the company's auto operations return to profitability.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s sales in the U.S. exceeded Ford's for the first time in July. Ford regained the No. 2 slot behind General Motors Corp. in August. Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair said Ford management didn't decide until a board meeting yesterday that it would postpone the 2008 target of returning North American auto operations to profitability. Executive Vice President Mark Fields, head of the North American unit, said that meeting the 2008 goal would have required cutting back investment in new cars and trucks.

Meanwhile, Ford said the plants it took back from auto-parts maker Visteon Corp. last year will be sold or closed by the end of 2008. Ford originally took back 23 factories and offices from its former subsidiary. Two were made permanent parts of Ford's North American operations and the rest were to be sold or closed. This is the first time Ford has publicly set a target for disposing of those operations.

Ford said it will complete cutting as many as 30,000 manufacturing jobs by the end of 2008, moved up from the original 2012 target. The automaker estimated it will reduce its operating costs by about $5 billion a year by 2008. Ford also has completed new work-rule agreements at 30 of its 42 North American plants. Such agreements affect the way Ford deploys factory workers. The automaker projects the new agreements will save $600 million annually.

The company also identified two more plants to be closed: a metal-stamping plant in Maumee, Ohio, and an engine plant in Essex, Ontario. That brings the total number of plants identified to nine.

Also, a Norfolk, Virginia, plant that makes the F-150 truck, originally set to close in 2008, will close one year earlier. That plant and a St. Paul, Minnesota, plant, scheduled to close in 2008, will be reduced to one shift from two. The company's Dearborn Truck plant in Michigan will be expanded in 2007 to three shifts for F-150 production.