Walmart Inc. is eliminating some jobs inside its U.S. pharmacy business as the world’s largest retailer seeks to reduce costs and adapt to an ever-changing health-care landscape.

The company is “aligning our staffing with the demands of the business,” said spokeswoman Marilee McInnis, who declined to specify the number of jobs being cut.

A person familiar with the decision said the pharmacy cuts will represent less than 3% of all health and wellness staffers in the U.S. According to posts on LinkedIn and independent message boards frequented by Walmart employees, that could include as many as 40% of senior pharmacists, along with cuts for some new hires and reductions in part-time staffers.

“I don’t have a lot to share right now, other than we are on a transformational journey on how we operate our pharmacies and serve our customers,” McInnis said.

In Progress

Walmart is still in the process of telling affected employees, the person familiar said, noting that those impacted will have 60 days to find another role within the company.

The move illustrates how Walmart is trying to balance its need to reduce expenses while expanding its business in key categories. Walmart has pharmacies in almost all of its 4,700 U.S. locations, and health and wellness accounts for 11% of its U.S. revenue. At a gathering of investors in October, Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said the company’s ambition in health care is to find ways to increase its “share of wallet” in the $3.5 trillion market for health spending in the U.S.

While it hasn’t made a splashy move yet -- such as acquiring a health insurer like rival CVS Health Corp. has done with its deal for Aetna -- Walmart hired a new chief for the business last year and has made a series of smaller forays that show it’s interested in much more than the mundane business of filling prescriptions for Lipitor.

Health Ambitions

Walmart (WMT) has provided more than 2.5 million free health screenings over the past five years, giving the retailer a window into ailments its shoppers grapple with, like diabetes. Earlier this month in a store in Rogers, Arkansas, Walmart executives displayed improvements to the pharmacy area like bigger waiting rooms and a kiosk for customers to pick up prescriptions when the pharmacy counter is closed.

Combined, the moves signal a desire by Walmart to harness its greatest assets -- the 140 million people coming through its stores each week, plus its 1.5 million U.S. employees and a vaunted logistics network -- to create low-cost health and wellness services that reinforce its corporate mantra to “save money, live better.”

Earlier this year, Walmart pulled out of the network of pharmacies that consumers with CVS drug plans can use to fill their prescriptions, as the two companies squabbled over the size of reimbursements Walmart would receive from CVS. The two sides settled the dispute a few days later.