Cisco Reportedly Plans to Slash Up to 10,000 Jobs

Posted 07/12/2011 at 8:09am | by Paul Lilly

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Cisco, the largest maker of networking equipment, is featured in a number of TV shows and movies, and fans of 24 will remember Cisco technology helping Jack Bauer save the world. "Welcome to the human network," is the company's advertising slogan, and according to a Bloomberg report, Cisco's internal human network is going to be cut down by as many as 10,000, or about 14 percent of its workforce.

Citing "two people familiar with the plans," Bloomberg says Cisco will hand out as many as 7,000 pink slips by the end of August. The company is also offering early-retirement packages to around 3,000 workers who accepted buyouts. Back in May, Cisco said cutting jobs will help the company shave $1 billion in fiscal 2012, while noting that early retirement packages will cost the company between $500 million and $1.1 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter.

"We will provide additional detail on the cost reductions, including layoffs, on our next earnings call," Karen Tillman, a spokeswoman for Cisco, told Bloomberg in reference to an earnings call scheduled for early August.

Those who accept the buyout and retire early will receive a full year's salary and medical benefits. The package was offered to about 5,800 employees, Bloomberg says.

More than half of Cisco's revenue comes from sales of routers and switches. However, Cisco coughed up 6.4 percentage points in global router market share as rival Juniper gained ground. Cisco also recently shut down its Flip video camera division, which resulted in 550 job cuts.