OREANDA-NEWS US electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc. will cut its full-time workforce by 10% over the next three months while increasing the number of hourly employees, Elon Musk, CEO of the company, said.

Thus, the total number of Tesla employees will decrease by about 3.5%, said Musk during his speech at the Qatar Economic Forum event. Fixed-salary employees make up roughly two-thirds of Tesla's workforce, he added. He also stated that the number of employees in the company is growing too fast.

He noted that the cuts are "not super serious", and despite them, he expects Tesla to have more both full-time and hourly employees in a year. Musk, however, did not explain when he plans to start increasing staff, The Wall Street Journal notes.

In early June, the media reported, citing a message circulated among Tesla employees, that Musk announced the need to reduce the company's staff by 10%. The same message spoke of Musk's "extremely bad feeling" about the economic situation.

According to Bloomberg, the number of Tesla employees worldwide is now 99.29 thousand people.

Tesla shares are down about 3% in early trading on Friday. Since the beginning of this year, their value has decreased by 27%.