Cisco is undergoing a second round of significant redundancies in 2024, creating an extremely stressful environment for employees. The company recently confirmed in an SEC filing that it will cut 7% of its workforce, representing over 6,300 positions out of a total workforce of 90,400. This follows an earlier round of layoffs in February that affected around 4,000 employees. The current cuts will reportedly cost Cisco around $1 billion in the short term.
Employees are reportedly facing weeks of uncertainty, and many are not expected to learn their fate until September 16, according to a report from Techcrunch. The atmosphere at Cisco has become increasingly toxic, with one employee describing it as the most negative work environment he has ever experienced. The two waves of layoffs in the same year have left the workforce deeply unsettled.
Scott Herren, Cisco’s chief financial officer, clarified in an interview with Bloomberg that these job cuts are not aimed at increasing profitability. Rather, they are part of a strategic realignment as Cisco wants to focus more on cybersecurity, cloud systems and artificial intelligence (AI) products. This realignment requires a reallocation of resources to these growth areas.
The layoffs also come in the wake of Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk Inc., which is currently being integrated into its existing product offerings. Cisco Chairman and CEO Chuck Robbins announced plans to combine the networking, security and collaboration divisions into a single organization to be led by Jeetu Patel. Jonathan Davidson, general manager and executive vice president of Cisco Networking, will move into an advisory role to Robbins in the meantime.
