Following tech industry peers Meta and Amazon, networking giant Cisco is reportedly sacking over 4,000 employees, or about 5 per cent of its workforce, as part of a “rebalancing” act to rightsize certain businesses.
Cisco has a 83,000-strong workforce globally, as per reports.
The company’s move to rightsize certain operations may see around 4,100 staffers going out, according to a report in the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
In its first quarter earning report (Q1 2023) this week, Cisco reported $13.6 billion in revenue, up 6 per cent year over year.
Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco, did not divulge any detail on laying off employees, saying he would “be reluctant to go into a lot of detail here until we’re able to talk to them. I would say that what we’re doing is rightsizing certain businesses”.
Cisco CFO Scott Herren described the move as a “rebalancing” act.
“Don’t think of this as a headcount action that is motivated by cost savings. This really is a rebalancing. As we look across the board, there are areas that we would like to invest in more, Chuck just talked about them. Security, our move to platforms and more cloud-delivered products,” Herren said during the company’s earnings call.
He said that if we look at the number of jobs that the company has opened in the areas that it is trying to invest in, “it is just slightly lower than the number of people that we believe will be impacted”.
“We’re going to be working really hard to help match our employees to those roles to the extent there’s a skill match. So, we’re going to work really hard at that,” said the company CFO.
A growing number of tech companies like Meta, Twitter, Salesforce and others have laid off thousands of employees amid rough macroeconomic conditions.
