Cisco Systems Inc. is reportedly trimming its workforce amid the pressure on its business from changing enterprise spending patterns and macro factors such as the coronavirus outbreak, which contributed to a more than 2% decline in the company’s stock today.

The planned layoffs were first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday evening.

The networking giant confirmed the move in a statement, saying that “this is part of an ongoing process of aligning our investments and resources to meet the evolving needs of our customers and partners. Our continued focus is on transforming Cisco and driving the innovation that will secure the long-term, profitable growth of the business.”

The company added that “we will always offer our full support to impacted employees.” Cisco didn’t divulge how many employees are set to be affected and in what business units. 

The leading maker of networking equipment for data centers is pursuing an effort to transform from a mainly hardware-focused business to one that sells software and services. But the company for the time being still makes most of its revenue from infrastructure. This past quarter saw the sales of the company’s core Infrastructure Platforms business drop 8%, to $6.53 billion, which pulled its overall revenue down 3.5% from where it was last year.

Cisco nevertheless beat Wall Street’s revenue and profit expectations for the three-month period ended Jan. 26.

Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins blamed the revenue drop on “macroeconomic issues” in an analyst call. The CEO said factors such as Brexit and the U.S.-China trade dispute have led customers to hold off on new orders, a slowdown that’s expected to continue into the current quarter.

Against the backdrop of the call, Cisco released a forecast for the current quarter projecting a 1.5% to 3.5% drop in revenue. The company also said it would implement a $300 million restructuring plan to cut costs.

Cisco currently has about 75,000 workers worldwide. The company’s last public round of layoffs took place in August, when the company cut 480 jobs at its San Jose and Milpitas offices in California.

A number of enterprise technology providers have also made workforce adjustments recently. A report in January indicated that Intel Corp. had adopted a plan to lay off 25% to 33% of the employees at its Intel’s Data Center Group, while Google LLC’s cloud business and VMware Inc. both announced job cuts earlier this month.

Photo: Cisco