Cisco will minimize hundreds of jobs in a second spherical of layoffs this 12 months because the US networking tools maker shifts focus to higher-growth areas, together with cybersecurity and AI, folks acquainted with the matter stated.
The variety of folks affected could possibly be much like or barely larger than the 4 000 staff Cisco laid off in February and can doubtless be introduced as early as Wednesday with the corporate’s fourth-quarter outcomes, stated the sources, who weren’t authorised to talk publicly.
The corporate employed round 84 900 folks as of July 2023, in line with its annual submitting. That quantity doesn’t account for the February layoffs. Cisco didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Cisco, the biggest maker of the routers and switches that direct web site visitors, has been grappling with sluggish demand and supply-chain constraints in its mainstay enterprise.
That has pushed the corporate to diversify with strikes akin to its US$28-billion buyout of cybersecurity agency Splunk, which it accomplished in March. The acquisition will cut back its reliance on one-time tools gross sales by boosting its subscription enterprise.
The corporate has been making an attempt to include AI merchandise in its choices and in Could reiterated its goal of $1-billion price of AI product orders in 2025. In June, it launched a $1-billion fund to make investments in AI start-ups akin to Cohere, Mistral AI and Scale AI. The corporate stated on the time it had made 20 AI-focused acquisitions and investments within the final a number of years.
The layoffs are the most recent within the tech trade, which has been slicing prices this 12 months to offset large investments in AI.
Layoffs
Over 126 000 folks have been laid off throughout 393 tech corporations for the reason that begin of the 12 months, in line with knowledge from monitoring web site Layoffs.fyi.
Earlier in August, chip maker Intel minimize over 15% of its workforce, or some 17 500 folks, because it tried to show round its money-losing manufacturing enterprise. — Utkarsh Shetti and Supantha Mukherjee, (c) 2024 Reuters
