Minneapois ? Roughly 38,000 Ford Motor workers nationwide elected to accept buyout offers, the ailing automaker disclosed Wednesday.

“We are definitely pleased with the acceptance rates,” said Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans. “We think one of the reasons that we got such a good acceptance rate was the nature of the packages that we created in collaboration with the UAW.”

Hourly employees who accepted buyout packages during the six-week enrollment period that began Oct. 16 and ended Monday will begin to leave the company in January 2007, Ford officials said in a statement. The employee departures from the North American plants are expected to continue through the year and be completed by Sept. 1, 2007.

Ford officials stressed that the 38,000 figure was “preliminary,” but it’s clear that whatever the final number turns out to be, more workers have elected to leave Ford than the 30,000 to 35,000 the company projected when it announced early this year that it would engage in a comprehensive restructuring. Ford has said it intends to close 16 North American plants by the end of 2008, instead of its original 2012 target, because of its rapidly shrinking U.S. market share.

The company now has 17 percent of the market, compared to the mid-20s just a few years ago.

Employees change shifts at the Ford Rouge Center entrance near a statue of Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mich. Almost half of Ford Motor Co.'s hourly production workers, 38,000 so far this year, have accepted buyouts or early retirement offers as the nation's second biggest automaker shrinks in the face of multibillion-dollar losses and fierce competition from Asian carmakers.

Of the 38,000 workers leaving, 30,000 of them signed up during the last six weeks. About 8,000 had signed up under offers made earlier this year, officials said.

Ford had 83,000 UAW workers at the start of 2006.

Ford’s buyout offers ranged from $35,000 to $140,000, depending on age, length of service and the type of retirement or separation package selected. Two tuition packages (for two or four years of study) offer $15,000 a year for school costs plus medical benefits and half the worker’s base wages.

Ford officials added Wednesday that all buyout acceptances are preliminary, with employees able to rescind them “up until the time of their separation from the company.”

“While I know that in many cases decisions to leave the company were difficult for our employees, the acceptances received through this voluntary effort will help Ford to become more competitive,” said Ford CEO and President Alan Mulally, who grew up in Lawrence and graduated from Lawrence High School and Kansas University.

The automaker lost $7 billion during the first nine months of 2006. Ford said Wednesday it expects to burn through $17 billion more through 2009 because of continuing losses in its manufacturing operations.