Dell Technologies has confirmed it is laying off an unconfirmed number of its employees but has said the move is not a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The tech giant has refrained from commenting on numbers, but an anonymous source told The Register this week that the total could amount to as much as 6% of the businesses' global workforce of approximately 160,000.
In a statement handed to news outlets, Dell said the decision to cut back jobs was pre-planned and did not come as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, the firm added it was making "proactive steps" to mitigate the virus' impact across the company.
"Like all businesses right now, we’re taking a number of proactive steps to prepare for the uncertainties presented by COVID-19," Dell said in its statement. "We recently made some workforce reductions that reflect decisions made in early 2020 as part of regular evaluations of our business structure, and weren’t related to the pandemic."
Back in May, Dell revealed it was placing a temporary block on employee pay rises and company-wide hiring, as well as contributions to 401(k) retirement plans, to help tackle the financial impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the business.
"Like all businesses right now, we’re constantly evaluating our business to plan for resiliency in the current environment and to support our team members, customers and community in a way that sets us all up for success on the other side of this pandemic," Dell said in a statement at the time.
Upon release of the firm's Q1 earnings figures in May, which revealed a very small decline in revenue over the same period of 2019, the firm said it was happy with its PC sales and its ability to meet customers' COVID-19 requirements.
At the time, executives commented that they did not expect the business to see its typical Q1 to Q2 revenue hike – but they do expect to see demand for Dell products accelerating post-pandemic due to economic events and an emergence into "an accelerated digital existence".
