Juniper Networks To Slash 440 Jobs In $59M Restructuring Plan

At the center of its $59 million plan to restructure the business, likely around its blossoming Enterprise Networking and AI businesses, Juniper Networks is letting go of 440 employees, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Juniper Networks this week revealed that it was conducting a round of layoffs worldwide and carrying out a $59 million restructuring plan as the company realigns around its “long-term growth opportunities.”

Job cuts worldwide are expected to total 440 employees and were approved by the company on Sept. 29, according to a Thursday U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The company did not disclose which business units could be impacted by the layoffs and Juniper Networks did not return CRN’s request for comment before publication on whether channel headcount would be affected by the job cuts.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based networking giant expects incurred costs of $59 million, of which approximately $48 million are expected to result in cash expenditures, Juniper said in its SEC filing.

[Related: Juniper Networks’ Apstra To Make Private Data Center Management ‘As Easy As Cloud’]

“The company believes the plan will further allow it to continue to prudently manage operating expenses in order to deliver improved operating margin,” Juniper said in its filing.

Long-term growth opportunities for Juniper are likely to include its enterprise networking business, which last year outpaced Juniper’s dominant service provider business for the first time in the company’s history, as well as its Juniper Mist AI portfolio.

“Enterprise being in the lead is really a function of the strategy and the transformation that we’ve been on as a company. And being part of that transformation is around software,” Juniper CEO Rami Rahim told CRN in an interview in 2022 after the record-breaking quarter.

In its most recent financial quarter, which ended June 30, Juniper reported that Enterprise revenue increased 38 percent, AI-Driven Enterprise revenue grew 17 percent and Cloud-Ready Data Center revenue climbed up 3 percent year-over-year. Growth in the AI-Driven Enterprise segment was led by its Mist AI portfolio, which increased more than 60 percent year over year, marking a record quarter.

The company’s pared down headcount will include cash charges for severance and other related employee termination expenses of approximately $40 million, according to the SEC filing. Juniper also expects to incur other restructuring and related costs of approximately $19 million.

Juniper expects the layoffs to be “substantially” completed by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2024 in March, but the company warned that certain potential position eliminations are subject to local law and consultation requirements, which may extend the workforce reduction process beyond that date in certain countries.

Juniper Networks is not the only networking giant making job cuts this fall. Cisco Systems in September announced that it was letting go a total of 350 employees in Silicon Valley by Oct. 16.