Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) last week began laying off hundreds of employees at units around the world, including 250 at its Silicon Valley headquarters. At a conference call, Cisco president and CEO John Chambers said that the company was liable to fire an additional 1,500-2,000 of its 65,000 workforce, in addition to the 1,000 layoffs made last year.
7-10%, or 40-60, of the 600 employees at Cisco's R&D center in Netanya have been fired. The employees joined Cisco through its acquisitions of Israeli start-ups P-Cube, Riverhead Networks, Actona Networks, and Sheer Networks in 2004-05.
Cisco Israel was unavailable for comment.
A Cisco spokesman said that the layoffs were part of a limited restructuring, needed to adjust the company's resources and employees to the business conditions.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 1, 2009
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