Cisco sheds Sydney jobs

Two percent of global workforce to go.

Cisco has begun paring down its Australian workforce after revealing last week that it would cut a total of 1300 jobs worldwide.

About 20 engineers in its St Leonards, Sydney office are understood to have been made redundant in the past week.

Sources said rumours of a restructure had been circulating since earlier in the month.

Cisco last Monday announced that it would shed two percent of its global workforce – 1300 jobs – under a “set of limited restructurings” to simplify its structure.

The round of redundancies came in addition to a year-old drive to save $US1 billion by cutting some 6500 jobs.

A Cisco spokeswoman declined to comment on the St Leonards redundancies this week, noting that the company was “not releasing any location or number specifics beyond the two percent global impact”.

"We routinely review our business to determine where we need to align investment based on growth opportunities,” she told iTnews, echoing a statement made by the company last week.

“Additionally, we continue to evaluate our organisational structure as part of our plan to drive simplicity, speed of decisions and agility across Cisco.

“As we focus on both of these efforts, we are performing a focused set of limited restructurings that will collectively impact approximately two percent of our global employee population.

“These actions, subject to local legal requirements, including consultation where required, are part of a continuous process of simplifying the company, as well as assessing the economic environment in certain parts of the world.”

Cisco had 1114 Australian employees as of July 2011.