The carmaker made $2.7bn (£1.7bn) in 2009, compared with a loss of almost $15bn in 2008, and said it expects to be profitable this year as well.

For the final three months of last year, the company made $868m, a dramatic improvement on the $6bn loss it made a year earlier.

Ford said its return to profitability was in part due to cutting costs and reducing debt levels.

Ford employed 89,000 people in the US at the start of 2009, but that number dropped to about 80,000 through buyouts and layoffs by the end of the year.

The importance of cutting costs was highlighted by the fact that revenue for the full year was $118.3bn, $19.8bn less than in 2008