Cisco to Cut Thousands More Jobs

Cisco is slashing jobs for the second time in 2024. We’ve seen this story before—too many times. Cisco says they are shifting the focus to high-growth areas, including AI and cybersecurity.

Just a few months ago, Cisco laid off 4,000 employees. The new layoff numbers are slated to coincide with announcing the company’s fourth-quarter results this week. A year ago, the company employed just shy of 85K people.

Some foresaw this move given the company’s $28-billion buyout of cybersecurity firm Splunk in March. The acquisition enables the company to move its revenues to a subscription business basis vs. one-time equipment sales.

In May, Cisco announced it would reach $1 billion worth of AI product orders in 2025, and in June this year, it launched a $ 1 billion fund for investments in startups such as Cohere, Mistral AI, and Scale AI. Cisco has made 20 AI-focused acquisitions and investments in the last several years.

The layoffs follow the tech industry trend of cutting costs this year to offset big investments in AI.