Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) will be handing out employee buyout offers next week at plants in Michigan and Ohio. Just as the automaker continues grappling with a declining market share and lower sales, it needs to trim its workforce to match.

The automaker has already given employees at plants in Ohio and Kentucky the option of leaving the company with a payoff, so this is nothing new. Offers will be made to employees at 14 sites throughout Ohio and Michigan, with possibly more buyout offers coming to more facilities in August.

As expected, the buyout offers are for five assembly plants in addition to supporting facilities that make engines and transmissions. It's a pretty good guess that all those plants and parts come from the large truck and SUV world, as Ford said it is slowly trending away from building so many of these vehicles. What's amazing is that the automaker warned of slowing truck and SUV sales way back at the end of 2005. It's just now seeing the fruits of it not paying much attention pay off.

Ford's Way Forward plan to return to profitability won't come in 2009 as expected, and will probably show progress in 2010. If gas prices stay near current levels into 2009 and Ford still hasn't rearranged its product portfolio to be as flexible as the U.S. customer needs it to be, it may be beyond 2010 for Ford to see a consistent profit.