Ford is offering additional retirement incentives to eligible workers at the plant as a way to achieve the cuts. The package includes a $7,500 retirement allowance and a $3,500 voucher to purchase a Ford vehicle, More said. 'It would be too soon to say how many people will be taking the retirement incentives because we are just offering them,' More said. Gary Beck, president of Canadian Auto Workers Local 707, which represents the Oakville plant's employees, estimated about 650 of the plant's workers would be eligible. The cuts come at a time of weakening sales for crossovers, which many automakers saw as a way to hold onto truck and SUV shoppers seeking more fuel-efficient alternatives. The Oakville plant makes the Lincoln MKX, the Ford Edge and the Ford Flex. U.S. crossover sales fell 12 percent industrywide in August from a year earlier, according to figures from Autodata Corp. Dan Luria, an economist at the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center in Plymouth, Mich., said the slump in crossover sales reflects a growing distaste among consumers for vehicles with middling fuel economy. 'Consumers basically decided that if it doesn't get close to 30 miles per gallon,' they don't want it, he said. 'It's a consumer overshoot.' The Oakville plant began shipping crossovers just two years ago, when Ford touted the segment as a major component of its turnaround plan. The latest job cuts mark the second major reduction at the facility in recent months. In August, Ford scrapped plans to add 350 new hires and 150 workers from Ford's facility in Windsor, Ontario. Those employees had been told they would be put to work as part of the plant's third shift, Beck said. Many of those employees had already relocated to Oakville before they were told they would not be employed, said CAW President Ken Lewenza.