15/02/2024
Internet networking pioneer Cisco Systems announced on Wednesday plans to lay off over 4,000 employees, adding to a trend of redundancies in the tech sector, as companies turn to boosting profits and stocks but risking job security in an industry increasingly embracing artificial intelligence.
The mass layoffs come in conjunction with Cisco’s latest quarterly results representing about 5% of its worldwide workforce of 84,900.
The purge follows Cisco’s late 2022 cutbacks that shed 5,000 workers and ahead of its $28 billion acquisition of Splunk, a deal that management now expects to complete by April 30.
Cisco – a company best known for making much of the technology that connects the internet – expects its reorganization to cost an additional $800 million.
The double whammy of two big layoffs in two years has been a phenomenon affecting other prominent technology companies, such as Google and Amazon, both of which have trimmed their once-steadily growing payrolls multiple times since the end of 2022.
