March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest maker of construction equipment, said it would fire 89 people and lay off 2,365 workers at five U.S. plants amid low demand for construction equipment.

The closing of a fuel facility in Jefferson, Georgia, led to the 89 firings, and the work done there will move to other Caterpillar plants. The other reductions took place in Georgia, Illinois and Indiana and included 245 management positions that were previously announced, spokesman Jim Dugan said today.

Caterpillar in January announced more than 22,000 job cuts and last month began a voluntary early retirement plan that would eliminate an additional 2,000 workers as Chief Executive Officer Jim Owens, 63, copes with a global recession and credit crisis. The company has said it may post a quarterly loss, its first in 16 years, and sales may drop 22 percent in 2009 to $40 billion.

The latest round of layoffs includes 2,120 factory jobs not previously announced. Of those, 861 are at a tractors and pipelayers plant in East Peoria, Illinois, and 655 are at the hydraulic excavators and wheel loaders plant in Aurora, Illinois.

An additional 405 production workers will be laid off at the Lafayette, Indiana, engine facility. Caterpillar’s Griffin, Georgia, plant, which makes generators and engines, will lay off 189 factory workers.

Caterpillar rose 41 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $26.83 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have fallen 64 percent in the past 12 months.

To contact the reporter on this story: Melita Marie Garza in Chicago at mgarza4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 17, 2009 16:15 EDT