Cisco Layoffs Hit Bay Area With More Than 700 Affected

On the heels of a companywide layoff announcement that's included more than 4,000 jobs and a high-profile job cut to its COO role, WARN notices reveal that Cisco will slash more than 700 jobs in the Bay Area.

Cisco Systems, following its companywide layoff notice made earlier this month that's impacting about 5 percent of its global workforce, disclosed more specifics about its cuts by revealing that it plans on cutting about 729 jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area by April.

The latest job cuts are specific to San Jose, Milpitas, and San Francisco, California, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications (WARN) that Cisco submitted on February 15.

The San Jose, Calif.-based tech giant confirmed on February 14 that it would be cutting jobs globally to adjust expenses and investments to reflect the current macro environment, as well as to shift its focus to "key priority" areas. Those cuts would include 5 percent of its workforce, or about 4,250 employees.

Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins the following week revealed that executive vice president and chief operating officer, Maria Martinez would be departing the company and the role of COO was being eliminated.

[Related: Cisco Job Cuts To Total ‘Thousands’ As Tech Giant Focuses on ‘High-Growth’ Areas: Report]

The Bay Area job cuts, which the WARN notices say are "permanent in nature" include a variety of roles. In San Jose, 11 engineering technical leaders, eight engineering product managers, six business analysis managers, and five customer delivery engineering technical leaders are among the positions being eliminated. Milpitas cuts include more than 50 software engineers and 29 software engineering technical leaders, and in San Francisco, a smattering of engineering and product manager roles are being eliminated.

Also included in the job cuts are marketing and communication roles and user experience, customer experience and product manager positions, among others.

The WARN notices for each city say that affected employees have been notified and will be terminated as of April 15. Some of the affected employees are able to apply for and secure another position within the company, Cisco said.

An executive for a top Cisco partner, who did not want to be identified, told CRN that the recent layoff round was "concerning." While Cisco is no stranger to layoffs and making adjustments to its workforce to support the company's focus, the partner said the most recent job cuts "felt different” and included more sales leaders and field sales employees that had close relationships with partners.

San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco has been focused on unifying its cybersecurity portfolio and boosting its market share in the security space.

Cisco at the end of 2022 issued layoff notices to approximately 4,000 employees, or about 5 percent of its workforce across some of its biggest business segments as the company rolled out efforts to “rebalance” and maximize cost savings, in part by layoffs, but also by shrinking its real estate footprint of smaller office locations.