Cisco Adding a Few Thousand More Hires to “Human Network”

Well, this is encouraging. Cisco Systems, which on Wednesday reported a dramatic year-over-year jump in sales and profit, is hiring up. The company increased its global workforce by about 2,100 in its second quarter. And it plans to add between 2,000 and 3,000 employees in the third and fourth.

“Last quarter we added 2,000 people, 1,000 through direct hiring and 1,000 through acquisitions,” CEO John Chambers told Fortune. “Going forward, in the 2,000-3,000 guidance, that was incremental, not through acquisitions–acquisitions will be on top of that. We’d like to balance it around the world. Assuming that governments create the right environments for job creation, we’d like to balance it about 50 percent here and 50 percent around the world.”

Obviously, this sort of headcount growth is good indication of Cisco’s upbeat view of the economy and future technology spending. As Chambers said in a call with analysts Wednesday, “Based upon our business momentum and prior economic recoveries, this would indicate that the recovery from a capital spending perspective is very strong and moving into the second phase of a reasonably balanced across-the-board growth. While the continued strength of the recovery and the eventual job creation may still be in question, we clearly are basing our decisions and investments upon an optimistic evolution of the economy….If we get surprised, we will adjust.”

UPDATE: Cisco’s great results and Chambers’s optimistic comments don’t seem to be doing much for the market today, as my colleague, Eric Savitz, notes over at Tech Trader Daily.