European Auto Industry Limping

Here are a few insights into how the European auto industry is doing at this point in time.

The Ford Motor Company is cutting 3,000 jobs at its Belgian manufacturing plant. The world's number two automaker is also canceling a planned billion dollar investment in new equipment at the facility in the city of Genk.

These job cuts follow 4,700 layoffs at Ford's other European and U.S. facilities announced earlier this week. The company has lost more than $6 billion in the past two years. I suppose it's comforting to know that Ford is not only cutting back its US operations.

Meantime, the world's number four automaker, Daimler-Chrysler, is also considering thousands of job cuts and may offer early retirement to throngs of workers to trim costs. A joint team of management and union officials is set to convene soon to work out details of the plan. Chrysler is said to be considering closing some manufacturing plants. As I reported earlier, Daimler will not move forward with its proposed Georgia production plant because of financial troubles and a struggling market.

The automakers blame their troubles on slack demand in European and U.S. markets, and strong competition from Japanese and Korean rivals.

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