Symantec has begun laying off workers, holding true to an earlier promise that it would cut five percent of its workforce to save about $200 million in costs.
In a January conference call with analysts, CEO John Thompson said the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm’s quarterly profits rose 25 percent but that it planned to save additional money by slashing part of its workforce.
"In order to align costs with revenue expectations, Symantec announced plans in January to reduce its cost structure by $200 million," the security software vendor said Thursday in a statement. "The company has identified a number of areas to achieve this target, including a five-percent cost reduction in headcount across the company. We have started implementing that reduction."
The company would not say from where the layoffs are coming, other than that the action is a "five-percent cost reduction in employee headcount across the company," Symantec spokeswoman Sherri Walkenhorst told SCMagazine.com today in an email.
She did say there "is an emphasis on minimizing the impact felt by our core engineering and customer-facing teams."
Symantec employs about 17,500 employees worldwide.
Its shares were trading up today at $16.76, a rise of 0.84 percent.
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