UPDATE 3-Chrysler to offer new buyouts to UAW workers

(Adds detail from Chrysler statement on total number of employees eligible, and statement from the state of Michigan)

By Soyoung Kim

DETROIT, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Chrysler LLC will offer almost all of its 14,000 factory workers represented by the United Auto Workers union in Michigan a new and richer round of buyouts and early retirement incentives, union and company officials said on Friday.

About 13,800 Chrysler employees in Michigan will be eligible for the buyouts, nearly all of the automaker's factory workers in its home state, the automaker said.

In addition to lump-sum payments of up to $100,000, Chrysler will also pay up to $10,000 in tuition assistance over two years and fund relocation and mortgage services for factory workers who accept the new offers to leave.

Although the financial terms of the buyout offers were the same as Chrysler has offered workers in the recent past, the automaker had not offered tuition or housing assistance.

Chrysler said it would announce details of its relocation assistance for departing workers next week.

Many UAW-represented workers have said they are reluctant to take buyouts to leave because the depressed Detroit-area housing market had made it impossible to sell their homes.

Chrysler has about 2,000 workers who are on layoff status without a prospect of new positions opening because of lower production and depressed vehicle sales.

Chrysler, controlled by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management [CBS.UL] since 2007, has set a target of eliminating 22,000 hourly jobs in North America through a series of buyout offers for union workers announced since last year.

The automaker said the new round of buyouts could be offered to workers at other U.S. plants depending on discussions with the union.

Chrysler sales are down 25 percent this year and the automaker -- now No. 4 in the U.S. market by share -- is not counting on a recovery in industry-wide sales until toward the end of 2009.

With U.S. sales on track to hit 15-year lows, Chrysler's larger Detroit-based rivals General Motors Corp GM.N and Ford Motor Co (F.N) also are cutting jobs.

Ford told the UAW this week that it has about 4,000 more hourly workers than it needs because of slumping sales as it offers its own buyouts on a plant-by-plant basis.

Auto sector job losses have become an issue in the U.S. presidential election in battleground states like Michigan and Ohio, where the industry employs over 240,000 workers.

U.S. lawmakers are expected to take up legislation in the coming weeks that would clear the way for $25 billion in federal-loan guarantees for automakers and their suppliers, funding some analysts see as critical to helping the troubled industry over the next year.