Ford cutting 7,000 salaried jobs

Ford workers opened their email Monday to find a letter from CEO Jim Hackett with an explanation of how many salaried workers would be leaving the auto company this week and why.

The company’s cuts will total 7,000 workers by the end of August, including voluntary buyouts and involuntary layoffs and reductions that have already occurred.

The cuts include 500 salaried workers in the U.S. who will leave involuntarily this week and 800 in the U.S. by August.

The move comes as Ford is under pressure from investors to reduce costs and improve its profitability, with a particular emphasis on bloated overseas operations.

“To succeed in our competitive industry, and position Ford to win in a fast-changing future, we must reduce bureaucracy, empower managers, speed decision making, focus on the most valuable work and cut costs,” Hackett wrote. “This required intensive work across multiple layers of our company.”