Cisco to Cut Workforce by 11,500

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Cisco Systems is keeping to its announced plans to reorganize the company to stay competitive in the network equipment business. Cisco announced today it will be cutting 11,500 jobs through layoffs and early retirements.

The company announced more cuts than some analysts expected.
 
CISCO screwing employees over to try to save the bottom line. Pay no attention to the mismanagement behind the curtain.
 
Bummer. Hope this doesn't hit too many of the [H] guys. Although anytime you hear 11,500 on the shuffling line, you have to ask yourself, whats going to be the total fallout down the line. How many more will lose their jobs cause those 11,500 paychecks not being put into the system as easily.

Not good.

On the bright side, I hear Cisco is hiring 11,500 new call center workers for $4/hr to offset the losses of $50/hr workers, and the CEO got a 1,712% raise to show how hard he worked.
 
Not that it matters a whole hell of a lot, but at least 5,000 of those are not US jobs...
 
Not that it matters a whole hell of a lot, but at least 5,000 of those are not US jobs...

I musta missed that part. I saw 5,000 moving to the factory in Juarez Mexico they sold to Foxconn. 2,100 are retiring, so that leaves ~ 4-5k dead in the water
 
Bummer. Hope this doesn't hit too many of the [H] guys. Although anytime you hear 11,500 on the shuffling line, you have to ask yourself, whats going to be the total fallout down the line. How many more will lose their jobs cause those 11,500 paychecks not being put into the system as easily.

Not good.

On the bright side, I hear Cisco is hiring 11,500 new call center workers for $4/hr to offset the losses of $50/hr workers, and the CEO got a 1,712% raise to show how hard he worked.

Yep, this is why rich people and big companies need low taxes. So that they'll hire more people when tons of them are sitting on more cash than ever.:confused:
 
These 2 items didn't help Cisco any..

1
http://mashable.com/2011/04/12/rip-flip-camera - Cisco purchased Flip maker Pure Digital for $590 million in 2009. At the time, the move struck some as odd, but the potential of a Wi-Fi enabled Flip made some sense. Sort of.

2
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/36710 - Cisco PowerPoint Presentation dated Nov. 17, 2008 that astonishingly revealed 1% of Cisco products generated an incredible 50% of all Cisco product revenue.
 
Hope none of you here that work for Cisco lose your jobs,
but a business has to be profitable in order to stay afloat.

Those of you criticizing them for cutting jobs.... they will do what they have to.

Yeah it sucks... but that is the way it goes.

If I was running a business and I had the choice of getting rid of people or going out of business I know which one I would choose.

Of course they could always just cut everybody's pay to make up for it.. but then they would most likely just lose that many workers to other places anyway.
 
So its an American company that makes all their money in America, and yet it seems their focus is just on cutting North American employment?

And our tax code rewards them for this.

Nice.
 

The top 2 items on that list used to be built here in the good old US of A, in fact I peronaly worked on them both. Now, after we spent all the effort in working out all the kinks and bugs with their product and manufacturing process, are reward for a job well done is that both are now built in Penang Malasysa by workers that cost a third or more less, and don't know squat other than "push this button".

Fortunatly, I don't work on any Cisco products anymore.
 
Hope none of you here that work for Cisco lose your jobs,
but a business has to be profitable in order to stay afloat.

Those of you criticizing them for cutting jobs.... they will do what they have to.

Yeah it sucks... but that is the way it goes.

If I was running a business and I had the choice of getting rid of people or going out of business I know which one I would choose.

Of course they could always just cut everybody's pay to make up for it.. but then they would most likely just lose that many workers to other places anyway.

This is one company laying off the equivalent of an entire town worth of people. you said, "If I was running a business and I had the choice of getting rid of people or going out of business I know which one I would choose." Would you really? A business failure of this magnitude doesn't happen over night. At what point do you say, my business decisions have fucked us over so badly that now I have to lay off an entire town? Do you think there might have been some warning signs? When the hell are American businesses going to wake up and realize "down sizing" is NOT a viable business strategy? Hey but, don't worry, I'm sure all the people who count got their quarterly bonuses. If things totally tank in the U.S., no problem, There's the rest of the world to fuck as long as I get mine.
 
I think this article is a little out of proportion. 5000 of those jobs are at a factory in Mexico. Said factory was sold to Foxconn. No one there is loosing their jobs, they will be employed by Foxconn. I guess this technically counts as "shedding" jobs, I wouldn't call those cuts.

2100 people voluntarily decided to retire early. Those aren't cuts either.

It's the left overs, approximately 4000, that will be getting pink slips. That's the part the sucks...
 
Preface: This post is fairly Cisco-positive, but I certainly do not think the company I work for is a candidate for sainthood. It's just easy to bash for the wrong reasons, rather than the right ones.

CISCO screwing employees over to try to save the bottom line. Pay no attention to the mismanagement behind the curtain.

Actually, 15% of the positions with a VP or higher title are on the chopping block. Which is exactly what Cisco needs. And, considering that 5,000 of the jobs cut are being transferred to Foxconn, that means that the odds on being in senior management and getting a pink slip are higher than if a regular rank-and-file worker.

The company has had a steadily increasing amount of middle and upper management that needs to go.

Bummer. Hope this doesn't hit too many of the [H] guys. Although anytime you hear 11,500 on the shuffling line, you have to ask yourself, whats going to be the total fallout down the line. How many more will lose their jobs cause those 11,500 paychecks not being put into the system as easily.

Not good.

On the bright side, I hear Cisco is hiring 11,500 new call center workers for $4/hr to offset the losses of $50/hr workers, and the CEO got a 1,712% raise to show how hard he worked.

We'll just have to wait and see. I was caught up in the last RIF, due to being in the wrong area at the wrong time, but managed to find another position within the company.

How Cisco handles outplacement is actually pretty amazing compared to what most other companies do during layoffs, so while it isn't exactly pleasant, they do a much better job taking care of the people being cut than at many other companies.

And the only support personnel Cisco hires anymore are backbone TAC. First level support is outsourced to crappy contract labor. Which infuriates many customers, but the smart ones just know to ask for an escalation when they have real issues.

Yep, this is why rich people and big companies need low taxes. So that they'll hire more people when tons of them are sitting on more cash than ever.:confused:

So I'm not in favor of tax cuts for the rich or general preferential tax treatment for corporations, but I do think it should be easier to repatriate money to the US from overseas. Not too easy, mind you, but Cisco is just one of many companies which will not bring money back due to the tax rates (which directly impacts the ability to pay US workers, or pay US shareholders dividends).

I work there, and yeah its a kick in the nuts.

Sure is. But the writing on the wall was visible from a mile away. Too many "market adjacencies" and some had to go.

I've been told, hell our whole department has been told to have a backup plan.

My group's been luckier, but then I do have the good luck of aligning to video, which is one of the announced core plays going forward.

Regardless, I am sympathetic. I've been there, it's not exactly fun. I am actively hoping that the amount of management (especially senior management) takes a nosedive, but for the worker bees who are actually productive, I hope the fewest possible are affected, and only related to our shittiest business units.

These 2 items didn't help Cisco any..

1

2

1) Flip was a stupid mistake.

2) Core infrastructure far and away the most profitable part of Cisco's business. That 3750s and 6500 components are the biggest profit drivers do not surprise me at all.

So its an American company that makes all their money in America, and yet it seems their focus is just on cutting North American employment?

And our tax code rewards them for this.

Nice.

Actually, Cisco makes a big chunk of its money overseas these days, but most of the excess fat is in the USA. The only direct employees overseas are a few development teams in India, and the international sales force. Manufacturing is done by 3rd party companies.

And, to be honest, after 20 years of company policy around job security (which I'm overall fond of), there is a lot of padding in the middle, useless management positions especially which is doing nothing good for anyone except the people gathering paychecks.

I think this article is a little out of proportion. 5000 of those jobs are at a factory in Mexico. Said factory was sold to Foxconn. No one there is loosing their jobs, they will be employed by Foxconn. I guess this technically counts as "shedding" jobs, I wouldn't call those cuts.

2100 people voluntarily decided to retire early. Those aren't cuts either.

It's the left overs, approximately 4000, that will be getting pink slips. That's the part the sucks...

Yep. 2100 people got a very fat package to go relax, find other employment if they want it (and do it while dragging around a very fat wallet). 5000 Mexicans went from being paid beans by a US company to being paid beans by a Chinese company.

And they manufactured products that have some of the worst margins in the company, from one of the less successful acquisitions in the company's history.

I have a on of sympathy for the 4,000 who will not be leaving voluntarily (and certainly worry that I could be amongst them), except for those individuals who've ridden the middle management gravy train despite not being productive in years.
 
this is why i went to work for a water company... city owned and people will always need pottable water. Not to mention state retirement and benefits.
 
This is one company laying off the equivalent of an entire town worth of people. you said, "If I was running a business and I had the choice of getting rid of people or going out of business I know which one I would choose." Would you really? A business failure of this magnitude doesn't happen over night. At what point do you say, my business decisions have fucked us over so badly that now I have to lay off an entire town? Do you think there might have been some warning signs? When the hell are American businesses going to wake up and realize "down sizing" is NOT a viable business strategy? Hey but, don't worry, I'm sure all the people who count got their quarterly bonuses. If things totally tank in the U.S., no problem, There's the rest of the world to fuck as long as I get mine.

I know how it works.. I've been let go at a place that was going under. Yeah, companies screw up big time and it ends up hurting a lot of people. At the same time, there comes a point when they don't have much of a choice but to try and cut expenses, especially when the work isn't there anymore for them to continue paying people that really aren't "essential".
 
Obama will save us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's always gotta be some jackass in every article, even non-political that has to make an anti-Obama comment. How moronic, unpatriotic, and un-American (as you guys used to say the liberals were at every criticism of Bush).
 
Well if we had the right leadership in the white house maybe so many companies wouldn't be laying off.
 
I am convinced that half the people working at Cisco in Milpitas CA are Indian.

Wonder who will get the boot.
 
this is why i went to work for a water company... city owned and people will always need pottable water. Not to mention state retirement and benefits.

Shhhh, I dont want more competition when I am done with school in a year :/
 
I was hoping they cut all the support staff in India. I don't even bother to put in TAC cases anymore because I can never understand them(always, always mumbling in incomplete sentences), they never understand me and especially the problem, they NEVER fix the problem and usually make it worse, and it ends up being a huge waste of time. And it's just the Cisco support that seems to be based in India. When I've called other support in the past, ie like dell and it's been based in India, I've had no problems, Cisco's just horrible! I wonder if they just offer hardware/rma support and S-can the rest of it to save money. Something I'll have to look into I guess.
 
Hope none of you here that work for Cisco lose your jobs,
but a business has to be profitable in order to stay afloat.

Those of you criticizing them for cutting jobs.... they will do what they have to.

Yeah it sucks... but that is the way it goes.

If I was running a business and I had the choice of getting rid of people or going out of business I know which one I would choose.

Of course they could always just cut everybody's pay to make up for it.. but then they would most likely just lose that many workers to other places anyway.

YAY CAPITALISM!
 
I was hoping they cut all the support staff in India. I don't even bother to put in TAC cases anymore because I can never understand them(always, always mumbling in incomplete sentences), they never understand me and especially the problem, they NEVER fix the problem and usually make it worse, and it ends up being a huge waste of time. And it's just the Cisco support that seems to be based in India. When I've called other support in the past, ie like dell and it's been based in India, I've had no problems, Cisco's just horrible! I wonder if they just offer hardware/rma support and S-can the rest of it to save money. Something I'll have to look into I guess.

If you're based in the US or Canada, all cases opened during normal US business hours (9AM EST to 5PM PST) are routed to US-based TAC if you reach backbone rather than the tier 1 outsourced crap.

Most of the outsourced folks are based in Latin America, not India, and are basically paid to close as many cases as possible as fast as possible. If you have a real issue and they're not helping, request an escalation. They can't easily say no, and you generally wind up in the hands of someone who speaks better English and can actually solve your problem.

If you're still having issues, and they're noteworthy ones, try to contact the reseller and/or Cisco account team (if one was involved) who you purchased your equipment from in the first place, and get the engineers from one or the other to help ramrod the TAC case along. For pissant issues, they may not be receptive, but if there's a real problem, most Cisco and reseller engineers will make the effort.
 
If you're based in the US or Canada, all cases opened during normal US business hours (9AM EST to 5PM PST) are routed to US-based TAC if you reach backbone rather than the tier 1 outsourced crap.

Most of the outsourced folks are based in Latin America, not India, and are basically paid to close as many cases as possible as fast as possible. If you have a real issue and they're not helping, request an escalation. They can't easily say no, and you generally wind up in the hands of someone who speaks better English and can actually solve your problem.

If you're still having issues, and they're noteworthy ones, try to contact the reseller and/or Cisco account team (if one was involved) who you purchased your equipment from in the first place, and get the engineers from one or the other to help ramrod the TAC case along. For pissant issues, they may not be receptive, but if there's a real problem, most Cisco and reseller engineers will make the effort.

It easy to say all that when you aren't in my shoes. When putting in TAC cases in the past for ASA firewalls, switches, ciscoworks, etc, I've always gotten a call center that is full of people of the Indian nationality. Escalation has never brought someone with better english/troubleshooting skills. and yes I've gone through our vendor that we've bought the hardware from to get support. Actually we just started paying them for support and I usually go through them anymore and just avoid Cisco as much as possible, but when dealing with RMA's, ya gotta go through them.
 
Cisco is over priced, their phone systems overly complicated and the customer service is poor.
Sorry to hear another great American company has gone down the tubes, but I can't say it surprises me.
Its all about the Profit!
 
I'll play devil's advocate here, but I know Cisco has some very cushy severance packages and right now the market is pretty ripe with good opportunities. I'd bet a lot of these folks are happy campers.
 
I guess Cisco can't handle all the competition from companies like HP and now even Dell is moving into their markets.
 
this is why i went to work for a water company... city owned and people will always need pottable water. Not to mention state retirement and benefits.

That works unless you are in a state like Florida.
My friend works for a huge water management district, they are being trimmed. All of Florida is losing government jobs, not just state level. And those that do stay, are having benefits cut.
 
This is one company laying off the equivalent of an entire town worth of people. you said, "If I was running a business and I had the choice of getting rid of people or going out of business I know which one I would choose." Would you really? A business failure of this magnitude doesn't happen over night. At what point do you say, my business decisions have fucked us over so badly that now I have to lay off an entire town? Do you think there might have been some warning signs? When the hell are American businesses going to wake up and realize "down sizing" is NOT a viable business strategy? Hey but, don't worry, I'm sure all the people who count got their quarterly bonuses. If things totally tank in the U.S., no problem, There's the rest of the world to fuck as long as I get mine.

Your argument is that of a small mind. Its not a business 'failure' to lay off 10,000 people. Companies expand and contract, labor is a RESOURCE that needs to ebb and flow as well. When you grow up you will understand that if you are working for someone else, you are a resource, nothing more.
 
There's always gotta be some jackass in every article, even non-political that has to make an anti-Obama comment. How moronic, unpatriotic, and un-American (as you guys used to say the liberals were at every criticism of Bush).

Well if we had the right leadership in the white house maybe so many companies wouldn't be laying off.

This. If Obama and Joe "Piracy is like breaking into Tiffany's and stealing jewelry" Biden were actually doing what was promised instead of being too busy taking piles of money from Big Media, maybe we wouldn't be in such deep levels of shit.

Then again, the problem also lies with the greedy, cigar chomping a*holes at the top running these companies that would do anything to make a buck.
 
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