Cisco Slashes Thousands of Workers As It Announces Yearly Profit of $10.3 Billion (sfgate.com) 51
An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGATE: Cisco Systems is laying off 7% of its workforce, the company announced in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. It's the San Jose tech giant's second time slashing thousands of jobs this year. The networking and telecommunications company is vast, reporting to have 84,900 employees in July 2023 before it chopped at least 4,000 in February. That means the new 7% cut will likely affect at least 5,500 workers. Cisco spokesperson Robyn Blum said in an email to SFGATE that the layoff is meant to allow the company to invest in "key growth opportunities and drive more efficiency in our business." [...]
More hints about the layoff's potential reasoning showed up in a Wednesday blog post from CEO Chuck Robbins. The executive wrote that Cisco plans to consolidate its networking, security and collaboration teams into one organization and said the company is still integrating Splunk; Cisco closed its $28 billion acquisition of San Francisco-based data security and management company in March. Cisco also announced its earnings for its last fiscal year on Wednesday. Total revenue was slightly down year over year, to $53.8 billion, but the company still reported a $10.3 billion profit during the same period.
More hints about the layoff's potential reasoning showed up in a Wednesday blog post from CEO Chuck Robbins. The executive wrote that Cisco plans to consolidate its networking, security and collaboration teams into one organization and said the company is still integrating Splunk; Cisco closed its $28 billion acquisition of San Francisco-based data security and management company in March. Cisco also announced its earnings for its last fiscal year on Wednesday. Total revenue was slightly down year over year, to $53.8 billion, but the company still reported a $10.3 billion profit during the same period.
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That's what friend/foe is for (Score:4, Informative)
Click the white 3D "ball" next to the user's ID number, and then mark them as a "Foe" so the ball turns red. Then go to your comment modifiers [slashdot.org] and apply a negative modifier to Foe in the People Modifier section. Then you can have their comments always suppressed.
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Click the white 3D "ball" next to the user's ID number, and then mark them as a "Foe" so the ball turns red. Then go to your comment modifiers [slashdot.org] and apply a negative modifier to Foe in the People Modifier section. Then you can have their comments always suppressed.
This is the kind of knowledge that comes with a low 6 digit member number.
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Remember when posting as Anonymous Coward would be limited temporarily? 4 years later we are still waiting for AC posts to come back.
Remember when you could sign up for a Slashdot account? This 6 digit member number remembers.
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Well played humble brag.
You are also a foe of a friend. I wish Slashdot had notes because all of my Foes were made at least 15 years ago
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This is the kind of knowledge that comes with a low 6 digit member number.
Haha, yes
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There are so many bad points here I don't know where to start
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Did we just find the guy who's been on the sidelines and hasn't experienced the real growth over inflation that a simple S&P 500 index fund has provided even during these hyperinflationary Biden years?
Re: makes sense in a stagflation (Score:2)
You have to have money to invest money. So I get it. A lot of people have nothing saved, nothing invested, and all these reports of a booming stock market does nothing for them. I would be surprised if his personal economy is experience stagflation or recession, even while the rest of world saw measurable growth. (Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he could just be a troll)
Re: makes sense in a stagflation (Score:2)
profits (Score:3)
It's 2024. Profits are for paying dividends to shareholders.
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It's 2024. Profits are for paying dividends to shareholders.
Profits are for either paying shareholders or growing the company.
Companies have never justified keeping workers "because they can afford it."
Capitalism doesn't work that way. It never has and never will.
If employees aren't contributing to the bottom line, they should find other employment where they do.
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Re:profits (Score:5, Insightful)
It's 2024. Profits are for paying dividends to shareholders.
Profits are for either paying shareholders or growing the company.
Companies have never justified keeping workers "because they can afford it."
Capitalism doesn't work that way. It never has and never will.
If employees aren't contributing to the bottom line, they should find other employment where they do.
Your uncritical faith in the the unchallengeable business genius of the capitalist aristocracy is commendable. Meanwhile, in the real world, I used to work for a telco that fired several hundred people citing the exact same reasons you just listed. One of these people was their sole maintainer (because why dent the bottom line by having two system maintainers for redundancy) of a pretty critical switching. This system broke down about two months after he left. Half of their telephone network was down for days while they flew the guy back from a Mediterranean vacation and paid him quite a lot more money than they would have if they hadn't fired him to restore service levels and then paid him even more to train his replacements. Customers were still citing this as a reason not to do business with this company ten years later. I could reel off a dozen similar examples of mercurial business geniuses screwing themselves by saving money on software testing but I don't want to offend your deeply held beliefs in the infallibility of capitalism too much in one day. So, you see, capitalism, the unerring invisible hand of the free market, or whatever it takes your fancy to call it, can be and often is dumber than a rock.
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Having once worked for a telco myself and having seen layoffs there I can tell you those companies are more beholden to their Union contracts than to clear-headed business thinking.
Screwing up layoffs by not applying seniority rules can result in an instant loss for the company at arbitration while giving the Union something to crow about.
If the place you worked was a Union shop then it stands to reason that sole system maintainer was a low seniority person, in the overall Union employee list, and therefore
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Having once worked for a telco myself and having seen layoffs there I can tell you those companies are more beholden to their Union contracts than to clear-headed business thinking.
Screwing up layoffs by not applying seniority rules can result in an instant loss for the company at arbitration while giving the Union something to crow about.
I don't know the answer to this question, but how do union seniority rules and federal anti-discrimination based on age rules work? Companies currently need to make sure to avoid accusations of age-based discrimination. If a contract based on union seniority rules trumps the federal laws, does that imply that a company can simply incorporate such rules in the original work contract and by so doing completely shield themselves from federal anti-discrimination laws? I would think that the provisions of any
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I suppose nowadays it would be argued out in a court room. Way back when the courts tended to respect work contracts between Unions & companies, unless the contract was obviously illegal and that required a lawsuit & court hearing to decide; nowadays I think they all go to court just because they can. Hint: Employment & contracts lawyers on both sides, Union & Company, know what the Courts will allow in a Union contract (stuff that has been litigated & settled in the past or is clearly o
Re:profits (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly how it's supposed to work. You make dumb decisions, they have consequences. Make enough of them and you go out of business. That's a good thing, because it means someone smarter is running things instead.
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Lastly, just take a look at Sonos
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Ideally. Unfortunately many companies figure out ways to keep doing dumb shit and stay in business. Just look at Sonos. It's bad for customers and really not great for employees either.
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I agree.
This is why unregulated, or in our case, light regulation with even lighter oversight & enforcement, pure capitalism results in the failure of democracy. Most of us learned
Corporations do not exist except as a legal concept. They should not have human rights. They should have zero influence on politics and elections. Every person in them, and stock holders/owners already has a vote. This is just giving the richest, powerful, and foreigners, more influence than regular citizens; much more.
If th
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Companies have never justified keeping workers "because they can afford it." Capitalism doesn't work that way. It never has and never will.
Though it's how it works... in places with strong labour laws.
If they can afford it, firing is unjustified in the sense of protection laws. Then labour court can force them to reintegrate the employee, or apply large severance packages, e.g. 20 months of salary in my place. That makes it unprofitable to fire and re-hire later based on short term goals. (They do offer voluntary departure packages.)
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just like you look for cheaper insurance, cheaper groceries, cheaper gas, cheaper rent, cheaper credit, cheaper flights, everything
Says someone whose never had the pleasure of generic macaroni and cheese. The good stuff is just ok, the cheap stuff is orange shit in a box. Hmmmm orange shit in a box that reminds me of something.
What roles to the people cut have? (Score:1)
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They rarely say what roles are being cut.
The PR spokesperson said Cisco wants to focus less on traditional networking and more on artificial intelligence. That may be true, or they may just be chasing buzzwords.
The CEO indicated that many of the layoffs stem from the consolidation of Cisco's recent acquisition of Splunk. That usually means managers, administrators, accountants, and salespeople.
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They rarely say what roles are being cut. Are these hardware engineers, software developers, middle managers, testers, sales people?
Out of that list? They probably fired engineers, software developers, testers, then moved all of that to India because that worked out so well for Boeing and their MCAS project.
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Of course they do (Score:2)
Rout (Score:2, Troll)
/It was a complete rout of the underperforming departments and teams./
Given that they had record revenues and earnings this looks like camouflage to get rid of employees who aren't there on merit.
But they can't say that.
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Can’t you go one day without the DEI boogey man?
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Nope, it's all they have. They can't make a coherent argument so let's blame . Because white men have never ruined companies or made mistakes causing companies to lose monies or sending businesses into bankruptcy.
Because that's what they mean when they use the word "merit". Anyone who isn't a white male only got the job because of DEI according to them. It's the same argument for why women are paid less. They go for jobs such as woman phy
"Focus on AI" (Score:2)
Yeah, this is supposed to mean products like Cisco Hypershield ("AI-Native firewall", https://www.cisco.com/site/us/... [cisco.com] )
Can't say I'm really impressed with that litany of buzzwords.
It's OK though. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure the remaining employees will be told, "We simply don't have the money to justify increasing salary this year. In fact, we were wondering if you could take on twice the work and a bit of a pay cut, then we can review how you handle it and cut your pay further for poor performance in 90 days. Sound good?"
Splunk had 8,000 employees ... (Score:3)
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It's coming... (Score:1)
What does Cisco do now (Score:2)
What is Cisco's market now, and can you do that with a commodify Linux 1U?