TOKYO (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co. said it would cut production in North America by 62,000 vehicles by shutting down factories for 13 days starting in May and said it would cut pay for salaried and factory workers.

Honda's shares gained 7.3 percent in morning trade in Tokyo on Wednesday as the yen lost ground, outperforming a 5.3 percent rise in Tokyo's transport sector subindex. The news was announced on Tuesday in the United States.

Japan's No.2 automaker, which like its rivals has been hit by the sharp downturn in auto sales, said it will cut pay for salaried and factory workers and also offered buyouts and early retirement incentives to most of its 32,400 workers in the United States and Canada.

It is the most sweeping program to reduce payroll costs offered by Honda, a spokesman said.

Honda has trailed Japanese rivals Toyota Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co. in reacting to a buildup of unsold cars in the United States, and executives have said it would likely take until the summer to bring inventory back to appropriate levels.

The slow pace is also partly due to Honda's policy of limiting sales incentives, which erode cars' resale value as well as profits. According to research firm Autodata, Honda's average spending on incentives per vehicle in February was the lowest among mass-market brands, at just over US$1,300 versus nearly US$1,600 for Toyota and US$2,900 at Nissan.

Nissan Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga said earlier in Tokyo he expected global production at Japan's No.3 automaker to be 10 percent higher in the first half of the new business year that started on Wednesday compared with the previous six months.

Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe, meanwhile, said last week Japan's top automaker was not planning any factory closures in Japan from May and beyond. A spokesman in Tokyo said Toyota had no new updates on production plans overseas. Toyota has shrunk work on about a third of its 74 global assembly lines to a single shift.

Honda has assembly plants in Indiana, Ohio and Alabama in the United States, as well as in Canada and Mexico. It also operates two engine plants and two transmission plants in North America.

Like Toyota, Honda previously paid its nonunion hourly workers even when it shut down factories to reduce inventory. But Honda said this time hourly workers would not be paid for six of the 13 days, to be scattered between May 1 and July 31.

Salaried workers will also see compensation reduced in the financial year starting on April 1, said spokesman Ed Miller.

Honda did not provide details of its buyout program, a measure Detroit automakers have used to cut payrolls sharply since 2005 by offering up-front payments of up to US$100,000 per employee.

Miller said Honda told its employees it expected bonus payments for both hourly and salaried employees to be reduced or eliminated this year.

The steps taken by Honda will have the effect of reducing hourly wage costs at its U.S. factories just as General Motors Corp (GM.N) and Chrysler LLC face pressure to bring their own compensation levels in line with the pay of workers at U.S. plants run by Honda, Toyota and Nissan.

Honda would not provide an overall production or sales forecast for the new fiscal year, Miller said.