Procter & Gamble Co. will keep exploring ways to keep U.S.-based layoffs to a minimum, perhaps fewer than the 900 projected in Saturday's Enquirer.

        Spokeswoman Martha Depenbrock would not reveal those options but said that the company is eager to keep layoffs to a minimum.

        A final number of U.S.-based layoffs for 2001 will not be known until mid-July, when the company will have a firm idea of the number of employees taking buyouts, she said.

        More than 2,500 P&G workers have requested voluntary separation packages. They are being processed.

        P&G has about 13,000 employees in the Tristate, up to 47,000 across the nation and 110,000 worldwide.

        Company officials have said 3,400 U.S.-based, white-collar jobs cuts are necessary - 900 because of the company's Organization 2005 restructuring plan and 2,500 as part of a new round of cuts announced in March - to re-establish P&G's dominance in the consumer-goods industry.

        A reduction in employees would allow the company to reduce product prices and pour money into marketing and developing its most profitable brands, officials have said.

        P&G hoped to lighten the impact of proposed layoffs by making some of the cuts voluntary. The company has extended separation packages to 40-something employees who have worked long enough that their age and tenure totals 70.

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