FREEPORT — Dow Chemical Co. will reduce its contract labor force in Freeport by “thousands” and ask nonessential full-time employees to take vacations from work after announcing Texas Operations will drop overall production to 35 percent.

The cutbacks would be evident at Dow’s Texas City chemical plant at well. Plant manager Charles Jackson said as production was reduced at the plant, there would not be the need for as many maintenance and other contract workers.

But he would not specify how many cuts there would be as production slows.

The production drop is set to run from Dec. 15 until at least Jan. 5 while the Freeport site — the largest chemical manufacturing plant in North America — fights to make a profit, site Vice President Gary Hockstra said.

“The current global economy is resulting in a drop of consumer goods not only here, but around the world,” Hockstra said in a news conference Wednesday. “That drop in demand has resulted in an unprecedented demand destruction for products produced by global chemical manufacturers, including the Dow Chemical Co.”

The petrochemical giant employs about 46,000 people worldwide, including 4,500 full-time employees and 4,000 contract laborers at Texas Operations.

Staffing companies for contract laborers who work at Dow were notified of the cuts Wednesday.

Hockstra could not give an exact number of positions that would be cut because Dow leadership still is determining where contractors must remain, site spokeswoman Tracie Copeland said. Examples would be projects that cannot be delayed or terminated and those who do specialized work.

“The exact number of contractors that we will restrict from this site is really going to end up being dependent on business decisions,” Hockstra said. “And as the business conditions play out over the next few weeks, that exact number — we’ll be able to see that over time.”

Dow full-time employees are expected to keep their jobs but could be moved into positions currently being worked by contract laborers, Copeland said.

“We literally will take our Dow employees and do the maintenance work that we do around the site,” Hockstra said. “And that way, we will not pay contractors to come in.”

Dow Texas Operations has never had such a significant cut in production in its 67-year history, but officials expect the site to rebound from the economic situation and employ just as many workers as it once did, Hockstra said.

“We want Texas Operations to be viable for the long-term,” he said. “This is one of our difficult but necessary steps that we’re taking to be able to conserve cash. Most of our facilities around the globe are facing a similar lack of demand.”

Some of the plants will produce at full capacity, while others will produce below capacity or shut down completely during the remainder of the month, Copeland said.

“A large number of plants either are running very slow or are literally shut down,” Hockstra said. “In many cases, the plants are slowed down in terms of how much product they are producing.”

Hockstra said plants that produce plastics for the automobile industry have seen a significant decrease in demand from consumers. But Dow’s agro-science wing, which develops chemicals used in herbicides, will continue to run at full capacity.

“Some are still profitable and are able to sell all the material that they make, and so those plants will continue to run,” he said.

Contractors whose expertise cannot be found among Dow employees will be retained at those plants working at full capacity, Copeland said.

Meanwhile, other Texas City petrochemical facilities were reporting business as usual. Valero spokesman Fred Newhouse said while the company is taking “prudent steps to control and reduce our operating cost where possible,” that there were no planned cutbacks.

At BP, spokesman Michael Marr said that cutbacks in the contractor work force were in the works but not related to economic slowdown.

“We have previously communicated that there would be a reduction in the contractor work force at our site as we complete the rebuilding of our refinery,” Marr said. “We are returning to a normal refinery setting, where much of contractor work is seasonal in nature, so there are typical time periods when we ramp up and ramp down that work force.”

The Daily News and The Brazosport Facts contributed to this report.