Chrysler offers up to $75,000 in buyouts

DETROIT (Reuters) - Chrysler LLC is offering white-collar workers up to $75,000 cash and vehicle vouchers valued as much as $25,000 to leave the company within weeks under its effort to slash 5,000 jobs.

Employees who accept the offers, which were detailed in a memo to employees on Tuesday that was seen by Reuters, are expected to leave by November 30.

A Chrysler spokesman confirmed the programs but declined to give details of the incentives offered.

Chrysler is offering buyouts to every salaried employee for the first time since 1991, a person familiar with the offers said.

Employees began to receive specific offers last Friday and will continue to receive them through November 7, the spokesman said.

Chrysler still expects to make some involuntary cuts by the end of December, depending on the buyout rate.

The U.S.-based automaker last week announced a plan to cut about 5,000 white-collar jobs, or 25 percent of its contract and salaried workforce, and reduce capital spending to ride out a deepening slump in the U.S. auto industry.

The buyout offers comes as Chrysler's parent Cerberus Capital Management is in merger talks with larger rival General Motors Corp.

Chrysler, sales of which have fallen 25 percent this year, has faced scrutiny over whether it can survive the downturn in U.S. auto sales that many analysts expect to stretch through 2009.

Chrysler is offering three levels of incentives to employees to leave the company -- retirement, an expanded early retirement, and the first outright buyout program since 1991 for salaried workers.

The retirement program includes $50,000 cash and vehicle vouchers valued up to $25,000 for employees 60 and older with 10 or more years of service.

The early retirement incentive involves no cash, but Chrysler employees aged 51 to 62 with 10 or more years of service will be eligible to retire with full retirement and health care benefits.

Employees with less than 10 years of service will receive an outright buyout offer of $50,000, vehicle vouchers of up to $25,000 and six months of health care coverage, while those with more than 10 years would receive $75,000 along with the voucher and six-month health care coverage.

Chrysler has 17,332 salaried workers but does not reveal the number of contract staffers it employs.

The No. 3 U.S.-based automaker had previously eliminated about 1,000 white-collar jobs at the end of September and has offered buyout programs to all of its union-represented workers in Michigan.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Gerald E. McCormick)