Energy giant BP (LON: BP) unveiled nearly 8,000 job cuts on Thursday, as part of corporate cost cutting measures across its global operations.

Confirming the job losses, the FTSE 100 company said it would reduce its workforce by 4,700. Given BP’s global headcount is around 90,000 personnel, the cuts represent over 5% of its total workforce.

The company also said 3,000 contractor positions would be cut too. However, in an email to staff, BP CEO Murray Auchincloss said around 2,600 of those contractors “had left the business already.”

While confirming the job losses, BP did not specify the number of cuts it will institute in each country it operates in. It employs 16,000 staff in the U.K., including 6,000 fuel retail forecourt staff.

The announcement follows a review of all of BP’s divisions. That’s after Auchincloss, who took over as CEO in 2024 following the abrupt departure of his predecessor Bernard Looney, announced his intentions to simplify BP’sbusiness and institute stringent cost reductions.

These are thought to be in the region of $2 billion due by the end of the fourth quarter of 2026. Nearly one-fourth of that cost reduction amount is to be achieved this year.

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Writing to his colleagues, Auchincloss said: “We have got more we need to do through this year, next year and beyond, but we are making strong progress as we position BP to grow as a simpler, more focused, higher-value company.”

But added that he understood “the uncertainty this brings for everyone whose job may be at risk, and also the effect it can have on colleagues and teams.”

Last year, BP also scaled back its plans to reduce the amount of oil and gas it produces by 2030. Under Looney, the company had previously promised that emissions would be 35-40% lower by the end of this decade. But Auchincloss announced it would now target a 20-30% cut and maintain investment in fossil fuels.

Speaking in November at the ADIPEC energy conference in Abu Dhabi, the BP CEO defended his stance by noting the world will need a considerable amount of “new investment” in oil and gas in order to maintain supplies, notwithstanding a possible settling of demand in the coming years.

Underpinning recent moves is Auchincloss’ desire to boost the FTSE 100 company’s lackluster share price that lags its ‘Big Oil’ peers by a considerable margin and is down by 5% since last year.

It hit a high of 541p ($6.61) in April only to slump to a 52-week low of 365p in November. That’s after BP unveiled its lowest quarterly profits in nearly four years.

Market response to the job cuts has been positive, so far. At 9:00am EST on Thursday, the company’s shares were trading at 428.65p on the London Stock Exchange, up 5.65p or 1.34%.

Auchincloss told staff that BP was still “uniquely positioned to grow value through the energy transition to renewables.

“But that doesn’t give us an automatic right to win. We have to keep improving our competitiveness and moving at the pace of our customers and society.”