Symantec Is Laying Off 2,000 Employees As It Splits In Half

Advertisement

Symantec Headquarters Mountain View

Wikipedia

Symantec's headquarters in Mountain View

Symantec, the security software company that announced plans to split in half last month, will lay off roughly 2,000 employees, or about 10% of its total workforce over the next year, San Jose Mercury News reported Thursday.

Advertisement

The company declined to break down where the cuts will come from, but said it will take place across "a number of locations and functions within the company."

The Mountain View-based company had 20,800 employees as of March, which made it the 10th-largest Silicon Valley tech employer last year.

Thursday's news comes after last month's announcement to split Symantec into two public companies. One of them will take Symantec's security side of the business, which had $4.2 billion in sales last year, while the other will primarily focus on document storage and protection businesses, which had about $2.5 billion in sales in last year. Symantec had another major layoff last year, when it cut roughly 1,700 jobs.

This makes Symantec the fourth tech company in Silicon Valley to announce major layoff plans, the report says. HP cut 11,000 jobs in May, while Intel and Cisco said it would each cut 5,000 and 6,000 jobs, respectively.

Advertisement

Symantec sent the following statement to Business Insider:

"Symantec will be taking a limited restructuring action over the next year, which will allow the company to reinvest resources to accelerate product development and reduce operational complexity. This action is expected to impact up to 10% of our global workforce, and is a necessary step to drive greater efficiency and growth."