Cat cuts another 2,500 jobs

Caterpillar has issued redundancy notices to another 2,500 workers in the US as it seeks to align its workforce with demand for its products.

While it expects production to rise between 10% and 25% next year and around 550 of its laid-off workers to be back at work by the end of 2010, it said some 2,500 workers would be leaving the business although it declined to specify which facilities would be hit.

The new redundancies take the total number of cuts Cat has made to its full-time and contracted workforce to 34,000.

Cat’s chairman and CEO Jim Owens said the forecast increase in production was welcome but would be nowhere near the record levels experienced between 2004 and 2008

Cat announced earlier this month that Doug Oberhelman, 56, is set to replace Jim Owens as chief executive.

Oberhelman currently oversees Caterpillar's engines and turbines division. He joined the company in 1975, worked in South America and Asia, and served as chief finance officer between 1995 and 1998 - a position that Owens also held.