Akron, Ohio ? Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has told employees in a company newsletter that it may idle 15 percent of its North American tire-making capacity this year.

But Goodyear spokesman Chuck Sinclair said Thursday the company had no immediate plans to shut any North American tire plants.

He said the goal was to shift production of some tires to countries with lower labor costs.

“Our position is all of our North American tire plants must be globally competitive,” he said. “If they aren’t competitive globally, our No. 1 desire is to fix them.”

The company operates 13 tire plants in the United States and Canada with a capacity of 367,600 tires a day. It employs 95,000 people overall. Goodyear has a plant in Topeka.

The newsletter came out two weeks after Goodyear began cutting 700 white-collar positions, about half of them in Akron, to save $80 million a year.