Cisco reportedly lays off about 700 employees in US

Cisco has fired close to 700 employees in the Bay Area, including 80 people in its San Francisco offices. The layoffs have affected many departments, including software and hardware engineering, programme management, product design, marketing, and others.

The layoffs are reportedly a part of a rebalancing act while rightsizing certain businesses announced in November last year. Earlier, Cisco had laid off around 5 percent of its workforce, which is more than 4,000 employees.

A total of 371 employees are impacted at the company’s San Jose, California, headquarters, including two Cisco vice presidents, 222 employees (mostly engineers and technical employees) are laid off in the nearby city of Milpitas, and 80 employees are being let go from the company’s San Francisco office.

Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco, however, did not reveal anything about layoffs, but said he would “be reluctant to go into a lot of detail here until we’re able to talk to them. I would say that what we’re doing is rightsizing certain businesses. You can just assume that we’re going to – we’re not actually – there’s nothing that’s a lower priority, but we are rightsizing certain businesses.”