Cisco to lay off at least 5,500 employees

Cisco, the networking equipment company, is planning to lay off at least 5,500 employees.

The company said it would lay off 5,500 workers, or 7 percent of its workforce, during its fourth-quarter earnings call Wednesday afternoon, according to CNBC.

It could get worse. Reports from earlier in the day, with the tech news site CRN citing sources within the company, said that the company could lay off as many as 14,000 employees, or closer to 20 percent of its global workforce.

The layoffs come as Cisco is transitioning from hardware to software.

"Today's market requires Cisco and our customers to be decisive, move with greater speed and drive more innovation than we've seen in our history." Cisco said, according to CNBC.

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The layoffs will begin in the first fiscal quarter of 2017. CRN reported that Cisco has already offered early retirement packages to some employees.

Cisco stock was down 1.3 percent Wednesday.

Cisco is not the only tech company cutting its workforce. In April, Intel Corp said it planned to lay off 12,000 workers, or 11 percent of its workforce.