Dearborn (WWJ)  -- Ford Motor Company's top North American executive says the company has finished it's latest round of white collar cuts, but he can't rule out cutting more in the future.

July, to say the least, was a very difficult month at Ford as the automaker's plan to cut salaried costs by fifteen percent meant many workers were surprised to find they were among the ones cut.

Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields did not say how many jobs were cut, but confirmed Wednesday that, at least for now, the cutting is over

"We had to take some tough decisions and we got through it, we said we were going to take those actions to reduce the salaried related personnel costs by August 1st and we completed that," Fields told WWJ's Jeff Gilbert. 

Fields did not rule out future cuts saying they would keep looking at their structure and evaluate that going forward.  

Meantime, Fields says Ford is always open to talking to others in the industry on things of mutual interest, but he wasn't commenting on reports in the Detroit News that Ford and GM were discussing joint powertrain projects.   Fields did say that joint ventures are fast becoming a way of life in the auto industry...

"When you look at things like investments around powertrains and just other technologies you are seeing many, many OEM's do some things together as those costs become prohibitive over time, so you're already seeing that," Fields said.