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Cisco reportedly plans to lay off 14,000 employees globally

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Cisco Systems, the largest networking equipment company in the world, is reportedly planning to lay off 14,000 of its over 73,000 employees globally, according to a report by CRN citing sources close to the company. The figure represents about 20 percent of its global workforce.

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If Cisco does the announcement, then that would make it the single largest layoff announcement in its three-decades-old company's history.

The layoff history of Cisco Systems started in July 2011, with 6,500 layoffs, then in July 2012, with 1,300 layoffs. And it continued in August 2013, with 4,000 layoffs, in August 2014, with 6,000 layoffs of its global workforce.

This drastic step is the result of Cisco’s transition from focusing on hardware to software. “They need different skill sets for the software-defined future than they used to have,” one source familiar with the situation, told CRN.

Cisco has been trying to offset the impact of sluggish revenue in its network switching and routers business by investing in new products such as data analytics software and cloud-based tools.

Many early retirement packages have already been offered to employees, as per CRN.

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