Mitsubishi Will Leave Jobs Unfilled at Its Illinois Plant

The president of Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said Tuesday that the company expects to reduce employment at its U.S. manufacturing plant in Illinois through attrition over the next three years as part of a major restructuring by Japan’s fourth-largest car maker.

The warning that jobs will be left unfilled at the 4,200-employee Mitsubishi plant in Bloomington, Ill., came at a hastily called news conference in Japan, where President Katsuhiko Kawasoe revealed that the company expects its net loss for the fiscal year ending March 31 to hit $860 million--almost triple the amount previously forecast.

Employment at the company’s U.S. import and distribution arm, Cypress-based Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, is not expected to be affected by the restructuring, a spokesman said.

Mitsubishi Motor Sales and its Mitsubishi Motor Credit of America subsidiary together employ about 1,200 people, including 900 in Cypress.

Mitsubishi has been hit harder than most of its rivals by regional economic problems, which resulted in lower demand for its cars and trucks.

It said it plans to restructure operations, reduce staff in Japan and the U.S. and close manufacturing plants in Thailand and New Zealand.

In the U.S., the company will restructure operations primarily by centralizing management functions.

At Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, however, the U.S. company’s founding executive, Richard Recchia, retired as chief operating officer last year. His successor, former General Motors Corp. executive Pierre Gagnon, moved quickly to revamp the company’s management system.

“We saw this coming and with our new management began preparing for it last year,” spokesman Kim Custer said. “In the past six months, we’ve put the [U.S.] company back into the black and we’re watching our budgets to ensure there are no future problems.”

Mitsubishi’s U.S. sales were up 1.1% last year, but are off 4.8% for the first two months this year. Nationally, total auto sales are down 3.5% through February.

Dow Jones News Service contributed to this report.