diff --git a/build_chrome.sh b/build_chrome.sh
index a834839e5d..9e52fc8a9a 100755
--- a/build_chrome.sh
+++ b/build_chrome.sh
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ DEFAULT_CHROME_DIR="${CHROMEOS_CHROME_DIR:-/home/$USER/chrome}"
 
 # The number of jobs to pass to tools that can run in parallel (such as make
 # and dpkg-buildpackage
-NUM_JOBS=`cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor | awk '{a++} END {print a}'`
+NUM_JOBS=`grep -c "^processor" /proc/cpuinfo`
 
 # Flags
 DEFINE_string chrome_dir "$DEFAULT_CHROME_DIR" \
diff --git a/build_kernel.sh b/build_kernel.sh
index 6fd124b149..4efa4667b1 100755
--- a/build_kernel.sh
+++ b/build_kernel.sh
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ then
     CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=2
 else
     # speed up compilation by running #cpus * 2 simultaneous jobs
-    CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=$(($(cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "processor" | wc -l) * 2))
+    CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=$(($(grep -c "^processor" /proc/cpuinfo) * 2))
 fi
 
 # Build the kernel and make package. "setarch" is used so that scripts which
diff --git a/build_platform_packages.sh b/build_platform_packages.sh
index b911c50426..3ac5f7c854 100755
--- a/build_platform_packages.sh
+++ b/build_platform_packages.sh
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ eval set -- "${FLAGS_ARGV}"
 set -e
 
 # Number of jobs for scons calls.
-NUM_JOBS=`cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor | awk '{a++} END {print a}'`
+NUM_JOBS=`grep -c "^processor" /proc/cpuinfo`
 
 PLATFORM_DIR="$SRC_ROOT/platform"
 
diff --git a/common.sh b/common.sh
index 25dee4a3ed..8b6fe5809d 100644
--- a/common.sh
+++ b/common.sh
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 
 # The number of jobs to pass to tools that can run in parallel (such as make
 # and dpkg-buildpackage
-NUM_JOBS=`cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor | awk '{a++} END {print a}'`
+NUM_JOBS=`grep -c "^processor" /proc/cpuinfo`
 
 # Store location of the calling script.
 TOP_SCRIPT_DIR="${TOP_SCRIPT_DIR:-$(dirname $0)}"