IBM is reportedly slashing jobs as it braces against operational challenges tied to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The cuts were first reported late last week by Bloomberg. That report indicated that the cuts impact jobs across different IBM divisions with a specific mention of its Global Technology Services division. That division, which includes IBM’s Infrastructure and Cloud Services and its Technology Support Services businesses, posted a 4% year-over-year drop in revenues for IBM’s most recent first quarter.

IBM CFO Jim Kavanaugh did note during the company’s Q1 earnings call that IBM was “going to continue to evaluate the cost competitiveness of this portfolio, and we’ll take further actions as required.”

IBM did not respond to SDxCentral by press time for comment on the reported job cuts. The company ended last year with approximately 350,000 total employees worldwide.

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, reported that “several thousand” jobs were cut.

“IBM’s work in a highly competitive marketplace requires flexibility to constantly remix high-value skills, and our workforce decisions are made in the long-term interests of our business,” IBM said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna noted during the earnings call late last month that “in the last few weeks we faced a shift in client priorities toward the preservation of capital.” Krishna said this shift impacted IBM’s software business “disproportionately” and that other parts of IBM’s business “maintained modest momentum.”

Kavanaugh provided more color on the situation, explaining that the company was “tracking roughly in line with our expectations” through February. “As we got into March, the health situation and resulting social distancing became more widespread,” he added. “As you would expect, we saw a noticeable change in client priorities. With that, there was effectively a pause as clients understandably dealt with their most pressing needs.”

Kavanaugh also noted that IBM’s software business took a significant hit as those deals have traditionally closed during the final two weeks of the quarter.

“For those clients that did engage at the end of the quarter, there was a noticeable change in priorities where focus very quickly shifted to the stability of their operations and preservation of cash,” Kavanaugh said. “They moved ahead with spending that addressed immediate and essential needs, including running mission-critical processes and securing a remote workforce.”

IBM also withdrew its operational guidance for the full year citing the ongoing uncertainty.

“February did not indicate where March would wind up. March didn’t indicate where Q2 will wind up,” Ted Schadler, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, wrote in an email to SDxCentral following the earnings release. “This thing is developing much too quickly to have certainty about.

IBM said it exited Q1 with a cash balance of $12 billion, though it was carrying $64 billion in debt. That debt load had ballooned following IBM’s $34 billion purchase of Red Hat that closed last year.

IBM’s move is the latest by cloud and IT vendors that have been struggling to cope with the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) just last week announced that all employees and board members were taking a pay cut following the company’s dismal second-quarter 2020 earnings that were hit hard by the global pandemic. HPE CEO Antonio Neri said the salary cuts would run from July 1 to Oct. 31 with the executive team taking the biggest hit.

Neri and EVPs will see their base salaries cut 25%. Senior VPs’ base salaries will be cut by 20%, and board members will also take a 25% cut to their annual cash retainer. The move is expected to save at least $1 billion by the end of fiscal 2022.

Nutanix earlier this month announced it would furlough one-quarter of its workforce for a limited amount of time to help preserve its financial position.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai earlier this year sent an email to employees explaining that the company would “significantly slow down the pace of hiring” for the rest of the year. Microsoft also said that it was freezing its hiring except for strategic positions.

Cisco struck a different tone with its efforts, with CEO Chuck Robbins encouraging other technology firms to not cut jobs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re actively involved in the community trying to help people who’ve been impacted by this, why would we contribute to the problem?” Robbins said in an interview with Bloomberg.

“There are companies whose revenue has gone to zero who have no option,” Robbins said. “To me, it’s just silly for those of us who have the financial wherewithal to absorb this, for us to add to the problem. It’s illogical.”