Toyota Motor Corp is considering exporting U.S.-made trucks including its full-size Tundra after scaling back its sales expectations for the U.S. market under pressure from record fuel prices and a slumping housing market.

Toyota's U.S. manufacturing chief also said Toyota could cut more temporary U.S. manufacturing jobs if the U.S. auto industry downturn deepens, as it has cut U.S. truck production amid a collapse in demand for the once-popular, gasoline-thirsty vehicles.

Toyota, now No. 2 in U.S. sales behind General Motors Corp is facing the unprecedented problem of excess capacity in the U.S. market as demand for large vehicles like its Tundra pickups and Sequoia SUVs tumbled while fuel prices surged.

The automaker is also contending with a strong yen, which eats into profits earned abroad when foreign currencies are converted into the Japanese currency.

Steve St. Angelo, senior vice president of Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing in North America, said at an industry forum that the automaker was evaluating the idea of exporting the Tundra and Sequoia, now exclusively built in the U.S. market.

Toyota has already cut about 500 temporary jobs in the United States this year and sees the possibility of additional reductions depending on "fluctuation in the market," St. Angelo told Reuters on the sidelines of the forum.

Temporary workers account for 10 percent of Toyota's 30,000-member U.S. manufacturing work force.
St. Angelo said Toyota is considering measures to minimize work force reductions, such as relocation of workers at plants producing larger vehicles to its Georgetown, Kentucky, plant, which builds better-selling, better-mileage cars such as the Camry, Avalon and Solara.

Toyota's U.S. sales fell 7.6 percent year-to-date through the end of July, with a 15 percent drop in truck sales.
Toyota is still looking to resume truck production in early November, but it is hard to predict the exact timing due to volatile gasoline prices, which have prompted a consumer defection from trucks and SUVs, St. Angelo said.