CVS Health is reducing 5,000 jobs to reduce costs because the retail pharmacy big furthers its push into health care offerings, an individual aware of the matter instructed CNBC on Tuesday.

The pharmacy chain had about 300,000 staff within the U.S. on the finish of final yr, in response to a securities submitting. 

A CVS spokesperson confirmed the layoffs and mentioned they aren’t anticipated to affect “customer-facing colleagues in our shops, pharmacies, clinics, or buyer providers facilities.” The spokesperson added that staff laid off will obtain severance pay and advantages, together with entry to outplacement providers. 

“As a part of an enterprise initiative to reprioritize our investments round care supply and expertise, we should take tough steps to scale back bills,” the spokesperson mentioned in a press release to CNBC. “This sadly consists of the necessity to get rid of quite a few non-customer dealing with positions throughout the corporate.”

The Wall Road Journal first reported the job cuts Tuesday, citing an inside announcement to staff. It comes a day earlier than CVS experiences its second-quarter earnings. 

Rhode Island-based CVS operates greater than 9,000 retail places and 1,100 walk-in clinics nationwide. The corporate owns one of many nation’s largest well being insurers and the largest pharmacy profit supervisor, which negotiates drug reductions with producers on behalf of well being insurers.

However CVS has sharpened its concentrate on well being care over the previous few years, following related strikes by rivals like Walgreens and tech big Amazon.

The corporate moved deeper into affected person care with its practically $8 billion acquisition of well being care supplier Signify Well being and $10.6 billion deal to purchase Oak Road Well being, which operates main care clinics for the aged.

CVS reduce its annual earnings forecast final quarter, citing the price of these offers.