Hazelwood, Mo. ? As mayor of this St. Louis suburb, T.R. Carr knew for months that Ford Motor Co. likely would cut one of the two shifts at its assembly plant in exchange for pulling the 50-year-old site off its closure list.

The world’s second-largest automaker made it official Thursday, announcing it will eliminate the plant’s second shift by April 26, cutting 1,000 jobs that draw an estimated combined payroll of $60 million.

Even with the advance warning, Carr winced at the news.

“It’s never easy to take,” he told reporters Thursday in the City Hall of Hazelwood, a suburb of 26,000 residents. “I really feel a sense of loss for the men and women whose jobs are lost.”

Displaced workers would be offered jobs at other Ford sites nationwide, spokesman Ed Lewis said from the automaker’s headquarters in Dearborn, Mich.

In suburban Kansas City, Ford will lay off 200 hourly workers — 100 on Feb. 6, then the other half a week later — from its 5,600-worker Claycomo plant, where the F-150 pickup truck and Escape SUV are made, Lewis confirmed Thursday.

“The bottom line: we had more people than we actually needed,” Lewis said. “This is a staffing-efficiency issue.”