The program is aimed at a segment of U.S. and Canadian employees at least 50 years old who have a combined age plus years of service with Cisco totaling at least 60, as of July 8, 2011. Eligible employees have from May 10 to June 24 to accept it.

“Cisco employs a variety of to control costs and align investment dollars, and offering this voluntary early retirement program to those eligible employees in the US and Canada is part of our ongoing commitment to responsible business management,” states Cisco spokesperson Karen Tillman, in an emailed response to Network World.

Tillman did not say what Cisco’s targets are for cost or workforce reduction through the Enhanced Early Retirement (EER) program. She said there will be little to no impact in Cisco’s current third quarter, which ends later this month, and that it was too early to tell if it would affect the company’s fourth quarter.

Cisco is revamping operations after consecutive quarters that saw revenue and profits in some core and tangential markets slump. CEO John Chambers issued a of the company a few weeks ago that promised changes in order to get Cisco back on track.

Those changes began two weeks ago, with and a restructuring of the company’s consumer business – one of the lowlights of Cisco’s fiscal second quarter – that cost 550 jobs. The EER is another step in that plan.