Fresh Cisco Layoffs Would Impact 4,000 Employees or More

Job reductions at Cisco would impact more than 4% of the IT giant's workforce, according to a leak out of the company.

Reuters broke the news Friday morning, citing "people familiar with the matter." According to Reuters, the cut will be the same size or potentially larger than a round of 4,000-some layoffs at Cisco in February. Reuters and Bloomberg write that Cisco might announce the cuts in its Wednesday quarterly earnings call.

It's not known how exactly how many people Cisco employs, but the number officially stood at 84,900 in July 2023. That count came before Cisco announced a restructuring plan to shift its investments "in key priority areas."

Cisco had not commented on the report as of press time. Moreover, there are no publicly listed WARN notices in any of the states where Cisco's offices reside.

Cisco Layoffs: An Industrywide Trend?

Media reports have been quick to link the news to disappointing earnings from key vendors associated with artificial intelligence. In particular, Microsoft and Google Cloud saw their stock prices drop after investors questioned how long it will take for investments in AI to pay off. The idea of an "AI bubble" has worried Wall Street investments.

Cisco has made several big sizable investments in recent years. Most notably, it spent $28 billion to buy observability software provider Splunk. It also touted its $1 billion investment fund for AI startups at its recent Cisco Live conference.

Related:Dell Laying Off Employees, Creating New AI Group

Dell recently announced a reduction that reports put at 10% of its workforce. Those cuts helped make space for a new AI-focused sales group. Intel announced at the end of July that it is laying off more than 15,000 people after reporting $1.6 billion net loss in its last quarter.