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Symantec will lay off a further 1,700 employees as a part of its ongoing management shuffles.
AllThingsD claimed that an unnamed source familiar with the matter confirmed the firm's plans to make redundancies on Tuesday. The source said that other cuts have been going on for several months, but described the recent batch as "the biggest yet", and said the cuts have already begun.
Symantec plans to instigate the cuts in two phases, axing roughly 1,000 jobs this month, before going on to slash a further 700 positions in July. Symantec declined V3's request for comment on the 1,700 figure, but confirmed it is pushing ahead with its cost-reduction strategy and is making staff cuts.
"Symantec is in the midst of a company-wide transformation. As part of this effort, we are engaged in a company-wide reorganisation. As a result, some positions are being eliminated. This action is a reflection of our new strategy and organisational simplification initiative announced by Symantec's executives on 23 Jan 2013," a spokesman told V3.
"One of the goals of Symantec's reorganisational effort is to make the company's employee reporting structure more efficient and support the company strategy moving forward. We have no additional details to provide at this time."
Symantec initially announced plans to shed a number of middle management roles in January, after it posted a significant slump in profits. Since then the firm has cut numerous staff, and if the figure for the latest batch is true, Symantec will have shed nearly eight percent of its 21,500 worldwide workforce.
Symantec's poor performance has also affected the company's upper management. Ex-Symantec chief executive officer Enrique Salem stepped down from his role in July 2012. Salem was replaced by the company's current chief executive Steve Bennett, who pledged to reverse Symantec's ailing fortunes by consolidating its assets and remodelling its strategy to be more business focused.
Despite the negative news, Symantec's strategy has proved effective. The company reported $6.9 billion in sales for the fiscal year that ended in March, marking a four percent rise in net income. The positive news led to an 18 percent increase in Symantec's share value this year.