SAN JOSE, California — Cisco Systems plans to lay off 7% of its workforce, second round of layoffs this yearas the company shifts its focus to faster-growing areas of technology, such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.
The San Jose, California-based company did not specify how many jobs it was cutting. It had 84,900 employees as of July 2023. Based on that figure, the number of jobs cut would be about 5,900. In February, Cisco announced it would cut about 4,000 jobs.
The networking equipment maker said in June it would invest $1 billion in tech startups including Cohere, Mistral and Scale to develop reliable AI products. It also recently announced a partnership with Nvidia to develop infrastructure for AI systems.
As a foray into cybersecurity, Cisco launched a cybersecurity readiness index in March to help companies measure their resilience to attacks.
Cisco said Wednesday it earned $2.16 billion, or 54 cents a share, in the fiscal fourth quarter ended July 27, a decline of 45% from $3.96 billion, or 97 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding special items, adjusted earnings were 87 cents a share in the latest quarter.
Revenue fell 10% from $15.2 billion to $13.64 billion.
Analysts on average expected adjusted earnings of 85 cents per share on revenue of $13.54 billion, according to a FactSet poll.
Shares of Cisco Systems Inc. rose 6% in after-hours trading.
