The nation’s largest computer infrastructure company today announced it would cut 4,000 jobs, representing 5 percent of its workforce, citing the challenge of global competition as reason to reorganize despite its quarterly report posting better than expected profits.
John Chambers, CEO said that in spite of the earnings report, Cisco faced challenges ahead, though he was short on whether there were any specific challenges requiring a trimmer workforce.
“We’ve got to take out middle-level management,” he said. “What I’m really after is not speed of decisions but speed of implementation.” He said that the company’s performance had improved over the last year, but that “it’s just been slow.”
Translation: Even though the company reported it earned $2.27 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $1.92 billion at this time last year, the 6 percent overall increase in revenue to $12.42 billion from $11.69 billion was not a strong enough showing, and more needed to be done to keep up appearances of short-sighted profiteering, even if that meant cutting thousands of jobs in an already jobless economic recovery.