Cisco To Cut ‘Thousands Of Jobs’ – Report

Networking giant Cisco Systems is reportedly planning a major restructuring that involves the loss of ‘thousands of jobs’.

Reuters, which cited three sources familiar with the matter, reported that San Jose, California-based Cisco is plotting the job losses as it seeks to focus on high-growth areas.

Cisco last December gained a notable victory in a five year legal battle against cybersecurity specialist Centripetal Networks, when it successfully overturned a $2.75bn patent ruling made against the networking powerhouse.

Job losses

Cisco currently has approximately 84,900 staff worldwide, but according to the Reuters report, the firm is still deciding on the total number of employees to be affected by the layoffs.

The workforce at Cisco however must be braced for bad news, as the layoff announcement reportedly could come this week, when Cisco prepares for its earnings call on 14 February.

Cisco declined to comment, Reuters reported.

Cisco has axed thousands of jobs over the past decade.

Perhaps the most significant reduction in recent years was in November 2022, when Cisco had announced during an earnings call a restructuring that impacted roughly 5 percent of its workforce (roughly 4,000 jobs) which had lead to $600 million in severance and other charges.

Tech sector

Cisco is not alone, if it does confirm that thousands of jobs are to go.

The tech sector as a whole of late has been plagued by many layoffs, as tech players seek to reduce their operational costs.

Last October Nokia said it would would cut up to 14,000 jobs as part of a cost cutting plan, and earlier in 2023 Ericsson said it would lay of 8,500 employees.

More recently big name tech firms such as Alphabet, Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, Salesforce and TikTok have announced fresh rounds of layoffs, on top of axing thousands of jobs in 2023 and 2022.