By Dipo Olowookere
Not less than 5,500 employees of Cisco Systems Inc will lose their positions in the US-based company, Business Post has learnt.
The company disclosed that the affected workers would be asked to go over the next 12 months.
It was further leant that the job cuts will begin in 2017 as the company attempts to accelerate a major restructuring project, shifting its focus onto other growth areas such as security, internet of things, collaboration and cloud services.
Cisco is one of the only several high profile ICT firms that has found itself struggling to attempt to adapt to booming cloud based services.
It was earlier reported that the outfit was planning to lay off about 14,400 workers, but the CEO of Cisco, Chuck Robbins, described this as both insulting and irresponsible.
In 2013 and 2014, the company reduced its workforce by letting 4,000 and 6,000 employees go respectively.
In April 2016, Cisco declared that it had more than 70,000 people in its workforce.
When it comes to network hardware and networking services, Cisco still remains the main company consumers run to.