About 2,000 Ford factory workers at the Kansas City Assembly Plant in Missouri will be temporarily laid off from Oct. 22 to Nov. 4.

“We match production to consumer demand as we always do,” said Kelli Felker, manufacturing and labor communications spokeswoman for the Dearborn-based automaker.

Ford workers with more than one year of seniority will receive approximately 80 percent of their take-home pay during the layoff period, she said.

Scott Daiss, whose LinkedIn business profile confirms he is a Kansas City autoworker, tweeted on Thursday in response to the news, “This is normal for us the past two years.”

Sales of the best-selling Transit van totaled 106,463 from January through September 2018 — up 13.5 percent from a year ago. Most of the sales are commercial orders and there is a high degree of variability, depending on the timing of the orders through the course of the year, said Erich Merkle, U.S. sales analyst for Ford.

In September, Transit sales dropped 14.9 percent to 11,532 from a year ago.

The F-150 pickup truck production at the factory will continue uninterrupted.

Industry observers said the latest Ford news is no cause for alarm.

“The temporary layoffs are a mechanism to ensure the workers get at least a portion of their pay during the shutdown, not likely indicative of deeper issues,” said Stephanie Brinley, senior analyst at IHS Markit. “Adjusting production for demand is increasingly important in a plateauing market, and it is in Ford’s interest to carefully manage inventory.”

Ford is not planning any additional layoffs at any other plants at this time, Felker said.

Temporary factory shutdowns are often viewed as strategic.

“Automakers have been very disciplined for the last couple years about not overbuilding so they have to slather on incentives,” said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader.

“Plants that make cars have been slowing and cutting production for some time, and we would expect they will continue to slow. For instance, GM has been trimming production of cars like the Cruze — cutting shifts at Lordstown, Ohio. Hyundai has been slowing car production in Alabama for probably the last year,” she said.

Meanwhile, truck plants are running with lots of overtime, Krebs said. “Ford’s truck supply, for instance, is extremely low — 57-day supply. It should be more like 80, at least. GM truck plants are in launch mode. Same for Ram.”

Economic forecasters have predicted a gradual slowdown in sales and production from a record-setting 2016.

Ford built 2,396,208 vehicles in North America during the first nine months of 2016; then saw a drop of 3.1 percent to 2,321,520 vehicles in 2017; now a further drop of 5.6 percent to 2,192,221 vehicles in 2018.

“The slowdown in auto production is a move in the right direction for the auto industry,” said Ivan Drury, senior analyst at Edmunds. “Sales are expected to slow down for the rest of the year and for next year overall. For automakers that are looking to right-size now, versus later, this can certainly save some headaches down the road.”

Summer “sell-downs” are becoming less effective and no one want to be stuck with new-old inventory when the new year arrives, he said. “Record-high incentives during September … and you could easily see how the industry health is in jeopardy. A slowdown now could move sales toward quality not quantity and that is not necessarily a bad thing.”

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All companies are assessing how best to control costs.

“A slowdown in commercial units like the Transit could be a sign of larger issues, not just for Ford, but other automakers and the economy at large,” Drury said. “As long as the slowdown is contained to two weeks, there shouldn't be too much cause for concern, but if the time away extends or spreads to the F-150 line, then we have larger implications for sure.”

Meanwhile, U.S. vehicle sales during the first nine months of the 2018 dropped 2.4 percent from a year ago to 1,887,525. And the drop in 2017 was 2.8 percent.

No one wants cars and trucks sitting in dealerships unsold. Too much stock on dealer lots ultimately leads to more consumer discounts that drive down prices.

Thus, building fewer vehicles is viewed by industry leaders and investors as prudent.

Ford’s reported production for the first nine months of 2018 shows 129,299 fewer vehicles compared with a year earlier, including the popular Ford Mustang and Lincoln Continental. Growth continues with the Ford Explorer, Ford F-Series and Lincoln Navigator.

Meanwhile, Ford cut production of its Escape at the Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky from 284,826 SUVs in the first nine months of 2017 to 236,292 this year, to match production with demand. Ford is launching an all-new Escape in 2019.

Ford dealers around the U.S. grumble that the company shouldn’t have told the world that it planned to abandon passenger car production, a strategy many automakers embrace but few tout. It has scared away shoppers who fear the plan takes effect immediately rather than years down the road.

Ford experienced an 11-percent drop in September sales, part of which was attributed to erratic data impacted by hurricanes Harvey and Florence. Year to date Ford sales are down 2.4 percent to 1,887,625 vehicles.

Todd Dunn, president of UAW Local 862, which represents hourly workers in Louisville, told the Louisville Courier-Journal there has been no talk of layoffs there but "it's always a concern when production drops off."

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: phoward@freepress.com or 313-222-6512. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid.