NEW YORK (AP) -- Starbucks Corp., which already plans to shut 600 stores, said Tuesday it is also cutting almost 1,000 office jobs as part of its bid to re-energize the brand and boost its profit.

Of the new cuts, 550 of the positions are layoffs and the rest are unfilled jobs.

The announcement came a day before Starbucks was set to report its third-quarter financial results, which analysts expect to show a substantial decline in profit because of slower traffic and a drop in sales at established stores.

For the company's investors, the store closures and layoffs offer some hope that the chain's declining traffic, profit and stock price may all rise again.

But optimism is absent among many of the company's employees, who say Starbucks is hurting its workers and customers to save its stock price. The shares have sunk 47 percent in the past year.

"Closing stores is definitely not for the employee or customer's benefit," said Dave Ebert, a 21-year old barista in Minneapolis whose store is closing. "It seems like a lot of their business decisions lately have been shareholder-focused."

The latest round of job cuts are in addition to the layoffs from the store closures, although not all employees at stores that are closing will lose their jobs. In a letter to employees Tuesday announcing the

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices tumbled more than $2 a barrel Tuesday, finishing at their lowest level in seven weeks as a stronger dollar and beliefs that record prices are eroding the world's thirst for energy sparked another dramatic sell-off.

The drop -- which surpassed $4 a barrel at one point during the day -- was a throwback to oil's nosedive over the past two weeks and outweighed supply concerns touched off by a militant attack Monday on two Nigerian crude pipelines. It was oil's seventh decline in the last 10 sessions.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $2.54 to settle at $122.19 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the lowest settlement price for a front-month contract since June 10. Earlier, prices fell to $120.42, also the lowest level since June 10. Oil has now fallen more than $25 from its trading high of $147.27, reached July 11.

More concerns that crude's run-up over the past year has pushed prices to unsustainable levels fed Tuesday's decline. The U.S. Transportation Department said Monday that U.S. drivers logged 9.6 billion fewer vehicle miles in May -- or 3.7 percent -- compared to the same period last year, the biggest drop ever for the historically busy summer driving month.

And demand for oil in the U.S. -- the world's thirstiest consumer -- continues to fall, dropping by 891,000 barrels per day in May compared the same month a year ago, the Energy Department's Energy