Global communications equipment giant Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) is set to fire 300 employees in Israel as part of its streamlining of worldwide operations. Cisco has 1,800 employees in Israel after the acquisitions of NDS and Jungo in the past few years.
Cisco develops, manufactures and markets products for communications networks, IPTV, data security and storage. The company, led by CEO John Chambers, has a market cap of $130 billion. In reporting its quarterly results tomorrow the company will reportedly announce that it is laying off 20% of its global workforce. The layoffs are expected to begin in early October.
Cisco already implemented a relatively small wave of layoffs at the end of 2013 when only dozens of employees were fired as part of a global cut of 5%.
NDS which provides encrypted video content was acquired by Cisco for $5 billion in 2012. Many of the layoffs in Israel will be within the framework of organizational changes at NDS. That acquisition made Cisco one of the top five foreign high-tech companies with operations in Israel and at the time Cisco stressed NDS would strengthen its Israel center. In January 2013, Cisco also bought Israeli company Intucell for $475 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 12, 2014
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2014