Duke Energy says it eliminated 1,900 jobs across the company last year. In a securities filing Thursday, the Charlotte-based company says it paid out $187 million in severance to those employees.
A spokesman said most of the cuts were voluntary buyouts, though the figure includes layoffs.
The cuts came across Duke's service area, from Florida to the Carolinas to the Midwest, and included human resources, legal, nuclear, and information technology departments. The total job cuts topped the 100 jobs eliminated in 2017, and the 600 in 2016.
In the filing, Duke says the cuts were "part of workforce planning and digital transformation efforts." Some were announced in October, and some were related to the 2016 purchase of Piedmont Natural Gas.
Duke has about 30,000 employees in six states.
