According to people familiar with the matter, Cisco opens a new tab that will slash thousands of jobs in a second round of layoffs this year as the American networking equipment manufacturer focuses on higher-growth sectors like cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
According to sources not authorized to speak publicly, the number of affected employees may be comparable to or slightly higher than the 4,000 workers that Cisco let go in February. The announcement and the company’s fourth-quarter results will probably be made as early as Wednesday.

Before the company’s announcement in February, San Jose, California-based Cisco made a job cut, which Reuters exclusively reported.
According to its annual report, as of July 2023, the company employed about 84,900 people. The number does not include the layoffs that occurred in February.
An inquiry for comment from Cisco was not immediately answered.
Soon after Reuters broke the news of the cuts, its shares dropped by almost 1%. Up more than 9% so far this year, the stock closed on Thursday.

In its core business, Cisco, the biggest manufacturer of routers and switches that control internet traffic, has been struggling with weak demand and supply-chain issues.
Due to this, the business has been forced to diversify through actions like its $28 billion acquisition of cybersecurity startup Splunk, which it carried out in March. The acquisition will increase its subscription business and lessen its reliance on one-time equipment sales.

The business has been attempting to include AI products in its portfolio, and in May it reaffirmed its goal of having $1 billion worth of orders for AI products by 2025. It established a $1 billion fund in June with the aim of funding AI startups like Scale AI, Mistral AI, and Cohere. At the time, the business claimed to have made 20 investments and acquisitions with an AI focus in the previous few years.
The tech sector, which has been reducing expenses this year to offset significant investments in AI, has recently announced layoffs.

Data from tracking website Layoffs.fyi shows that since the beginning of the year, 393 tech companies have laid off over 126,000 workers.
Chipmaker Intel made significant layoffs earlier in August, laying off about 17,500 workers, or 15% of the workforce, in an effort to turn around its manufacturing division, which was losing money.

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