IBM is quietly laying off thousands of employees, mainly impacting senior-level programmers, sales and support staff. The recent cuts were carried out in secret with employees sharing they were asked to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), and not talk about the specifics, per a report by The Register.

The company reportedly took a $400 million “workforce rebalancing” charge to cover the cost of planned layoffs in the first quarter of 2024. The charge follows a similar spending of $300 million in 2023. IBM had announced plans to cut 3,900 jobs in 2023.

IBM’s spokesperson shared that the cost of workforce rebalancing represents a very low single digit percentage of the company’s workforce, and that it expects to exit 2024 with roughly the same number of employees as the beginning of the year.

However, the company did not share the exact number of employees affected by the layoffs.

The company had about 288,000 employees worldwide at the end of 2023, and with the fixed cost per employee, last year’s charge and job cuts disclosure, IBM could be letting go of close to 5,200 employees, the report said.