US digital communications giant Cisco is set to layoff over 4,000 employees "Reuters" reports. This would be a second round of layoffs this year after Cisco dismissed a similar number of employees in February. The latest layoffs, according to the report, are part of a shift to focus on higher-growth areas, including cybersecurity and AI, people familiar with the matter said.
Cisco currently has 80,000 employees worldwide so that such a wave of layoffs would mean 5%-6% of the workforce being shed.
According to the report, the layoffs will focus on communications products like routers and switches and associated marketing and sales staff, while there will be greater investment in AI and cybersecurity.
No response has been forthcoming from Cisco Israel to "Globes" inquiries as to how the layoffs will affect the workforce here. According to LinkedIn, Cisco has 750 employees in Israel in Netanya and Tel Aviv and Leaba Semiconductor in Caesarea. It can be estimated that those employees engaged in work with Cisco’s traditional communications products will be more affected than the more than 160 Cisco employees in Tel Aviv working in cybersecurity and software.
The Tel Aviv center has already undergone major upheavals after the project based on the product developed by Epsagon, which Cisco acquired, was cancelled and employees were transferred to the development of Cisco’s Panoptica secure application cloud, which together with Israeli cybersecurity companies acquired by Cisco like Lightspin and Portshift have become important for the development of cloud security systems, like those offered by Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike and Wiz.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 11, 2024.
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