Cisco Systems, the once fast-growing computer networking company, is planning to cut 5 percent of its staff in the coming weeks to adjust for a sharp downturn in business, a source close to the company said late Thursday.
The cuts, affecting Cisco's full-time, salaried employees, will come on top of a hiring freeze and following substantial cuts in contract workers that have been made over the past several weeks, the source said.
A spokesman for Cisco (CSCO) confirmed the company was taking cost-cutting measures and had slashed its travel budget.
"It is normal during these business times to aggressively manage expenses, and that includes temporary workers, contractors and holding down travel costs, which will be cut 60 percent," he said.
Cisco currently has a total head count of 48,000, which includes about 5,000 temporary workers. It keeps a large base of short-term contract workers to provide flexibility in expanding and contracting with economic trends.
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More tales of woe: Intel reduced its revenue estimates for the first quarter and announced it will be cutting 6 percent of its work force -- during the next nine months, "predominantly through attrition."
The Santa Clara company, reported that it expects to eliminate about 5,000 of its current 87,000 positions, "predominantly through attrition."
Before yesterday's warning, Intel shares closed up 31 cents at $33.25 in Nasdaq trading.
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And still more: Eircom Plc, the Irish telecommunications group, said Friday, it was scaling back the operations of its British subsidiary eircom UK, resulting in the loss of around 80 jobs.
Eircom said the decision will reduce staffing at the subsidary's London unit to around 20 people.
The British subsidiary will now concentrate on servicing the communications requirements of corporate customers and managing its international traffic flows, it said.
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Escaping scot free: Eidos Plc, a British computer-games company, said the collapse of Express.com would not affect it, since it had already written off the $55 million invested in the company.
Eidos, which had a 12.6 percent stake in the U.S. Internet games retailer, made a full provision for its investment in its results for the half year to the end of September, which were released in November.
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Keep on keepin' on: CMGI, which operates several Internet companies, said that it will continue supporting its +Ventures venture capital affiliate to continue investing in new technologies.
According to CEO David Wetherell, CMGI will also continue making follow-up investments in successful companies while moving ahead with its own corporate restructuring plans.
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Deal du jour: Ticketmaster has agreed to acquire privately-held Evite.com, an online invitation service, to give its customers a new way to invite others to events whose tickets Ticketmaster sells.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Reuters contributed to this report
