Cisco Announces Q4 Earning, Plans to Cut 6,000 Jobs

By Steven Hogg - 14 Aug '14 12:17PM

Cisco Systems announced Wednesday its fourth-quarter earnings along with plans to downsize its workforce.

Networking systems giant Cisco said that its fourth-quarter revenue was $12.36 billion, which is down from $12.42 billion during the same quarter last year. Its net income was also down from $2.27 billion a year ago to $2.25 billion now, New York Times reported.

Cisco- the leader in networking technology systems, also announced that it will be slashing around 8 percent of its workforce or cutting about 6,000 jobs. The company hasn't announced a timeline for this job cull. This is the fourth time that the tech-giant has announced job cuts in four years, BBC reports.

Back in 2011, the company had cut 11,000 jobs while in August 2013, it said that it is reducing another 4,000 jobs, Reuters reported.

The networking behemoth is best known for its routing and switching systems. However, the company has diversified in the past few years and ventured into new markets such as computer security and TV set-top boxes. Bill Kreher, an analyst at Edward Jones told Wall Street Journal that Cisco is shedding off some units to focus on core sectors.

John Chambers, Cisco chairman and chief executive officer said that the job-cuts will help streamline the units and add more people in units that are growing,

"We will exit this year pretty much with the same number of people we started the year with," he said, according to Wall Street Journal. "Some groups will not be affected at all. Others will."

"We are focused on growth, innovation and talent, especially in the areas of security, data center, software, cloud and internet of everything. Our strategy is sound, our financials are strong, and our market leadership is secure. We have the team in place to deliver and are uniquely positioned to help our customers solve their biggest business problems," Chambers said in a news release.

The Silicon Valley giant didn't specifically name the units that will see job losses. Chambers hinted that sales representatives in countries that are showing a decline in revenue might be let go by the company, according to WSJ.