Ford Trims Layoff Plan for Romanian Factory

Ford Motor Co. will lay off about 500 workers, not nearly 700 as it predicted last November, at its B-Max van MPV plant in Craiova, Romania, this year, Reuters reports.

The company says it reached an agreement with its unions to save about 170 jobs at the facility by implementing a reduced work schedule. Ford says another 490 workers at the factory have accepted voluntary layoff compensation packages.

Ford has cut more than 40 days of production at the Craiova plant since the beginning of last year. The company has been mulling a plan to add a second model at the facility, which it acquired from the government in 2008.

Ford once expected to be making 300,000 vehicles and 300,000 engines at the Romanian facility by this year. But Reuters says B-Max sales in Europe in 2014 slumped to fewer than 54,000 units.