yahoo

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc. plans to cut 8,500 jobs, or about 17 percent of its workforce, take charges of as much as $3.7 billion and will report third-quarter profits far below forecasts as the biggest maker of gear that helps to power the Internet grapples with slowing economies and flagging telecoms capital spending.

The 8,500 job cuts were in line with estimates made in March of up to 8,000 job cuts.

Cisco, noting that the current business environment ``has never been more challenging,'' said on Monday it now sees fiscal third-quarter per-share earnings before one-time items in the ''very low'' single-digit range and that sales will fall 30 percent from the $6.75 billion in the second quarter.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), April 16, 2001