RTTNews | Jun 21, 2021 05:30PM EDT

17:29 Monday, June 21, 2021 (RTTNews.com) - U.S. oil company Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) is planning to cut its workforce in offices by between 5% and 10% annually for the next three to five years, Bloomberg reported.

The lay offs will be conducted using the company's performance-evaluation system, hence will only affect the lowest-rated employees relative to peers. Therefore, it will not be classified as layoffs. Meanwhile, this year's evaluation is currently going on, but affected employees have not yet been notified, the report said.

"Our annual performance assessment process has been occurring over the last several months," Exxon spokesman Casey Norton said. "Where employees are not contributing to their highest ability, they may need to participate in an improvement plan. This is an annual process which has been in place for many years, and it is meant to improve performance. This process is unrelated to workforce reduction plans."

The company last year announced plans to reduce its global workforce by 14,000 by the end of 2021. Exxon had around 72,000 regular employees as of end-2020.

Recently, the company lost three board seats to hedge fund Engine No. 1 after last month's annual shareholders' meeting. Engine No. 1 holds only 0.02% shares at the $250 billion company but during the economic crisis brought about by the pandemic, larger shareholders like BlackRock (BLK) pushed the company to look for more climate-oriented measures for a sustainable future. Engine No. 1 received the support of these shareholder groups and also the backing of pension funds.

XOM closed Monday's trading at $62.59, up $2.19 or 3.63%, on the NYSE. The stock further gained $0.20 or 0.32% in the after-hours trade.

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