Cisco Lays Off Thousands

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 15, 6:30AM EST

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Cisco Lays Off Thousands — © hxyume / iStock via Getty Images

The huge router company Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO | CSCO Price Prediction) said it would lay off over 4,200 people, about 5% of its staff. It joins other large tech firms that fired people late last year and early in 2024. Tech layoffs this year total about 35,000 people. “Efficiency” is often the reason, but in the case of Cisco, it is poor financial results. (This is the worst job in America according to data.)

Cisco’s results for the latest reported quarter were short of Wall Street’s expectations. Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins said, “Customers are pushing things out and putting a bit more scrutiny on them.” However he wanted to state this, Cisco is driving in reverse.

Company revenue declined from $13.6 billion in the quarter last year to $12.8 billion. Net income dropped from $2.8 billion to $2.6 billion. Cisco has not completed its $28 billion acquisition of security software maker Splunk.

Cisco forecasts revenue of $12.1 billion to $12.3 billion for the current quarter. It expects earnings of $0.84 to $0.86 per share. For the full fiscal year, it anticipates revenue of $51.5 billion to $52.5 billion and per-share earnings in a range of $3.68 to $3.74.

In the past year, Cisco shares are up 5% while the S&P 500 is 21% higher. By contrast, Microsoft’s shares are up 51% for the same period.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.