HoMoCo has announced significant cost-savings efforts throughout its North American operations. The plan is four-fold and includes production cuts, buyouts, salary reductions and elimination of bonuses.

Impacting all Honda manufacturing facilities in Canada, The United States and Mexico, production cuts will span across both Honda and Acura production lines. There will be 13 days between May and July in which all facilities’ operations will be suspended in the US.

In 2008, Honda produced a total of 1.3 million vehicles with both Honda and Acura nameplates, with some decrease in production output. “There is a continuing need to reduce our inventory,” Lietzke said. Notrh American plants are scheduled to reduce production by 62,000 vehicles alone this summer, but this does not necessarily reflect total production cuts for the 2009 fiscal year.

Nearly every North American employee will be offered a buyout. Honda spokesman Ron Lietzke said Tuesday that the buyouts will be offered at most of the Japanese automaker’s facilities in the North America, where it employs 35,600 people. Sweetened retirement packages are also being offered, he said.

Overall compensation will be reduced for its North American employees, with top executives experiencing the biggest cuts, Lietzke said. He would not say how much salaries would be reduced.

Bonuses will be greatly reduced or eliminated, but pay rates for production and hourly workers will not be affected, Lietzke said.

Honda has not been immune to the troubles plaguing the broader auto industry, brought on by the downturn in consumer confidence and the lockup in the credit markets. The automaker’s U.S. sales are down by about a third for the first two months of the year.

In February, Honda announced it was replacing its chief executive and reshuffling its board of directors in a bid to provide fresh leadership.

U.S.-traded shares of Honda rose 31 cents on Tuesday to close at $23.70.