Rumor: Cisco Systems to lay off IT contractors
According to rumors from insider sources*, Cisco Systems to cancel several internal projects (including Web 2.0 and R&D projects), laying off IT contractors, most of them are H1B visa workers. Cisco IT contractors are not actual Cisco employees, they are working through ‘vendor’ companies (also known as ‘body shops’). But the layoffs are real. Most likely these layoffs will not be listed in the Company layoff statistics.
Update (02-04-2009): Cisco Systems: Possible large (up to 10 percent) jobs cut in 2009
Update (02-24-2009): Rumor: “1800 More just got laid off at Cisco”, Austin, TX
Update (02-25-2009): Cisco Confirms Global Job Cuts
Update (03-12-2009): Cisco quietly downsizing through outsourcing
*WARNING: We cannot guarantee the accuracy of information as it is only an individuals point of view. We will investigate and/or omit any complaints of inaccuracy.
Updates and Comments are also available via RSS Feed
$30B in the bank and is healthy. Then why a layoff?
The bottom 5% is in danger anyway, even in good times. Normal attrition is about 5%. Add the two is 10%.
What is the reason for the layoff?
There is no good reason, a layoff could be avoided by reducing waste, delay building plans, 5% salary decrease for VP’s & directors. Or how about withdraw some money from the bank.
Whatever may be the case, but in past 2 years, couple of jokers had been recruited in India specific to CustAdvo who really doesn’t get along with Cisco’s vision but using trying to built up stories around that vision & fooling the team mates & sub-ordinates. First such toxic people needs to be thrown out which creates political environments rather than competitive.
Good Joke - Ref:315
without indians and chinese this company will grow this big, think carefully before you say this.
http://forums.immigration.com/showthread.php?s=4acd15710d13827c7ac74ac3875906e2&p=2026069#post2026069
Stupid sardar!
Are you one of those “jokers” who were recruited in India?
What a retarded oxymoron!!!
Latest update on layoffs
Cisco will cut 14% of FTE
contractors pay will be slashed by 15%, else the door is that way
collapse of management levels
suspend/cancel some projects
100% ban on all travel related expenses
This will come out on April 1st. So raise your hands and clap.
~ SlumDog Millionaire
hi slumdog, how you know this information.
you know very detail.
thank
Hey Slum, collapse of management levels, cut travels and suspend/cancel some projects should have been done long before to avoid the layoffs.
And most certainly the $30B in the bank said that Cisco could have avoided the layoffs if they choose to.
Sounds like an April Fools post if I ever saw one.
IBM going to acquire Cisco,you all need to belive. This site suit for posting this.
No 319, Cisco is going to acquire IBM :)..Don’t spread these rumors.. It will take 2-3 yrs for them to integrate Sun..if at all the deal works out..
Hey SlumDog, How did you get this info, last week John was telling, he would prefer to 10 % pay cut instead of 10% job cut. I think it’s April fools joke :).
I don’t think it is the fact that Cisco wants to hire engineers in India that people find offensive. It is the fact that Cisco is firing American engineers and then giving their jobs to engineers in India.
Chambers can call a layoff any fucking thing he wants. I just hope the ICE cops arrest him on H1 violations. Can you imagine the fun of a perp walk through the parking lot of Building 10? Someone would get a pic and that would instantly go viral.
I hope that great day comes very soon. It WILL be a great day, to…….
attend any cisco meeting or conference calls and it feels like indian food market. John chambers should change his name to Kumar Chambertha and migrate to India.. such a loser
and low class CEO with the rest of his indian SVP/ VP/directors..
ouch
Cisco may be looking for bailout $ while it outsources US jobs.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/40380
[...] News & Observer. Thanks anon for the tip. Share [...]
Hi Slumdog,
How did you find out the above information? The facts that your provided above seem to be accurate.
I actually got a call from my vendor asking whether I would agree to a 15% cut. I have asked them to give me a few days to think about it and I will provide the vendor with my feedback.
Do you know whether the vendor is getting a 15% cut as well? Or are they just getting a 10% cut and asking us to take 15%? (How do we really know what they negotiate for?)
Also do you think that if we refuse the cut we will be asked to leave?
Any feedback regarding this will be appreciated.
Thanks so much.
Kind Regards,
VendorGamePlan
When the price of rice soared the Indian government thought it best to stop exporting most types of rice, except the most expensive. If Indian rice for Indians first then why not America for Americans first? It is grim situation that we find ourselves in. Do you all see how quickly it has broken down to a fight for Country and now Race?!
America has ‘equal opportunity employment’ rules. Americans invented it, pushed to masses, so americans should follow it. India does not have ‘equal opportunity employment’. India for indians. America is also for indians. IT consulting at least.
#393: I think this 15% pay cut comes directly from Cisco, not from vendor. I do not think vendors would be playing games like this on their own these days.
You’d be surprised at what kinds of games vendors will play. For instance I was hired on at Cisco at less than %50 what Cisco was paying the vendor in hourly fees. I wouldn’t put it past them. Ask them to meet you half way - you deserve a raise anyway and it’s money lost to the vendor if they let you go cause your spot probably won’t be backfilled at this time.
50% is too brutal, unless the vendor also supports contractor’s H1B visa, pays off health, vision, dental. But even though 50% is too much. I’ve heard about 35-40% at maximum. 15% in case the contractor does not need visa support.
I have no H1B (US Cit) but yea, I was getting raped by the Vendor - TechOne to be specific.
Another Cisco’s vendor - Comsys, - same story. Greedy morons.
Cisco is using this “layoff” to discriminate against women and those over 40 who are not management. They have been doing this since 2001 and I am wondering when they will get class-action sued.
The days of working remotely and using their technology are over unless you are a VP or above. I guess they cant expect their employees to be available 24/7/365 if they wont pay for phones or home internet. The funny thing is they have directors reporting to directors sometimes multiple levels deep with no direct reports. Most shrewd managers step down after 3 or 4 years to the same benefits/pay with far less work. If they cut all the redundant and useless management in 2001, automated a little and streamlined things they wouldn’t be in this mess. Why is Cisco the last company to see an economic downturn?
If you own stock in them, get out now…
Cisco has long time, mid-level managers who send periodic global emails to colleagues for visibility (or to let people know that they are still living). The rest of their work time is spent at their vacation homes. Cisco won’t lay off these bums. It’s all a big game.
Thinker, all five points you make may be true. But I think your conclusion that these 5 points are why Cisco (or other companies) are hiring H1-B’s or outsourcing US jobs to Inida is completely wrong. These companies are doing it because H1-B’s are willing to work for much lower pay and engineers in India are paid much less than their US counterparts. I am part of a recent outsourcing and the reason for the outsourcing, as stated by the VP & GM of our organization, is because Cisco is saving money by replacing us with engineers in India.
seen cisco vendors take 50% or more ….
their greed does not know limits
Does anybody know when Cisco is going to start hiring again.
Tommorrow…
Wrong question in the wrong time..dude
396 - Cisco never stopped hiring throughout this entire downturn. However, hiring has been shifted to internal only postings. I would not expect to see any external hiring in 2009. If you dont work there now as a FTE, better not hold your breath. As far as contractors or H1Bs are concerned, that’s anybody’s guess. However, it’s likely that they will continue to downsize those folks and/or transfer jobs to India.
American Paleolithic Humans must be pissed off at the first place.
Cisco is converting around 40 satyam employees in their USA payroll, also sponsoring h1b visa (H1 visa tranfer). is it mandatory cisco should advertise in cisco job site, newspaper and cisco’s office break room for those positions.
I didn’t see these advertisements. cisco can find many US citizen with better experience than those satyam candidates.
is this legal for cisco to hire employees in h1b visa?
how can I get clarification?
whom can I contact in HR?
Yes, the job opening should be advertised in a newspaper and at the job site. However, the companies aren’t required to buy half-a-page ads in newspapers or hang huge banners at every entrance to the job site. I am not a lawyer, but as far as I know a few classified ads plus a little note in one of the break rooms, somewhere between the minimum wage/no discrimination/time-to-vote posters is enough.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/04/03/diy-stimulus-ceo-gives-workers-1000-each/?icid=main|hp-laptop|dl1|link2|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailyfinance.com%2F2009%2F04%2F03%2Fdiy-stimulus-ceo-gives-workers-1000-each%2F
I just remind greedy john after reading this
Well said
Not good news
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/10485760/1/tech-rumor-of-the-day-cisco-layoffs.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Thanks for sharing!
http://layoffblog.com/2009/04/14/tech-rumor-of-the-day-cisco-layoffs/
The Counter from Cisco http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/14/cisco_layoff_rumor/
Thank you for the update. It has been published here:
http://layoffblog.com/2009/04/14/tech-rumor-of-the-day-cisco-layoffs/
A Cisco spokesman mentioned “a limited restructuring” and “a total reduction of between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs company wide”.
http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/jobcuts/?appSession=67682231952913
Cisco San Jose’s layoff report
Thanks for the tip!
http://layoffblog.com/2009/04/16/warn-cisco-cuts-255-jobs-in-california-in-april-2009/
The 255-job reduction as mentioned only represents the people who were ALREADY cut 2 months ago.
Since these people were allowed to stat at Cisco another 60 days while looking for internal jobs,
their official termination date is then in April. In short, no new cut!
Once I worked for Cisco and now I work for some known consulting firm. I believe, hiring and firing is in any business. There is no such “permanent employment”. Poeple who wanted lucrative pays should also know that there is good amount risk involved with that lucrative paying jobs…
I feel sorry for the people who lost their job due to current bad economy. Perhaps, I may be in queue to get my pink slip.
Guys: Don’t waste time talking bad about any corporates. Why don’t you start your own company and be your own boss.
Well said. All the people who are whining on this board are not good enough to get into Cisco and are using excuses like racism to feel good about themselves. Such people probably never finished high school and are still staying in their parent’s basement.
our president “obama” is black but you will not find too many
african american in cisco… you know why? because indian
managers are racist… they do not want to hire black men..
i tell you ! you should see in their eyes (indian managers)
how they love ruling white men (after then been ruled bu British
for years)… cisco=racist company…
Get you facts straight. Look at the SVP level … maybe 1 or 2 Indians out of 15. Cisco is not ruled by Indians. I am German, and I find it better working with Indian engineers than American engineers.
it is not the question that we hate indians… we just like to see
cisco to be a fair square company.. why so many indian employees? why
not hire some non-indian folks… cisco ruled by indians and now they
are ruling the white men.
Get you facts straight. Look at the SVP level … maybe 1 or 2 Indians out of 15. Cisco is not ruled by Indians. I am German, and I find it better working with Indian engineers than American engineers.
Idiots. Bay area is the future detroit for software. Pack your bags, or dig up some gold.
Welcome to in human network.
just watch, we’re all going to be working for minimum wage again, (capitalist-generous=GREEDY)
OR EVEN FOR FREE, according to this article: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Will_Work_for_____Free_Bay_Area.html
be sure to ask yourself, “Which one is benefiting more, me or this greedy business?”, just watch your step and keep YOURSELF marketable!
I think to put an end to the IT lay offs we need to support Grassley-Durbin bill in the US Senate. In fact we should take it a step further such that companies should be only allowed to bring employee on H1/L1 up to 2% of there total workforce in USA. Only then can this carnage of employment be stopped.
Please write to the senators (http://durbin.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=271783) in support.
Hello every one , I am from Symphony Services, this is the most dirty and bul shit company in the world, they dont have atleast one good project , they dont have any good domain projects like banking, insurance,healthcare, they have only retail domain projects that too very few.they dont have developpent projects only maintenance projects,all are cheap projects. they recruit employes from big companies and they layoff .frankly speaking they spoil employees life.neither they grow or they will not allow U to grow.as an employee , my kind request is that dont join this fucking company as they dont have any projects.a big project size is of 30 (this is the max).this is the horrible place to work,please dont join if U have got an offer from this company, this is my personal experience.
rumours again of a mid july LR.
rumours heard of a mid july LR.
http://www.wral.com/business/story/5588247/
any more news about LR for RB
How is EDW team in Cisco. I am attending interview with a manager name hilda elena salazar. rates are not that good though
someone is saying she and all her team members are worst and work with
any suggestions
Never make assumptions Red Badge, I am an American and so were my forefathers as far back as the Slave Ships!!! My job does depend on it, but at what cost? $$$ or Lives?
Cisco has been outsourcing to India since at least 2007. Read the recent article:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/031209-cisco-downsizing-outsourcing.html
While Charlie Giancarlo was still Chief Development Officer, he made the statement that in 5 years, Cisco had actually aged 10 years. What he meant was that the average age of Cisco employees had increased by 10 years during the previous 5 years. He said he believed this, coupled with the fact that voluntary turnover was low at Cisco (said to be around 4%) was a bad thing for a company in his opinion. He then instituted “forced ranking” in groups (regardless of the abilities of the people in the groups) and those people unfortunate enough to land in the bottom 5% - 10% were given incentives to leave Cisco (such as not being eligible for salary increases or bonuses, which are a big part of Cisco employee’s compensation, being prevented from transferring internally within Cisco and being offered the standard Cisco severance package - 6 months salary - if they agreed to leave Cisco.
Since 2001, Cisco have been hiring contractors based in India to replace US engineers who were leaving Cisco. Since at least 2007, Cisco has been actively outsourcing US engineers and sending the jobs to India.
YES! Cisco has been laying off and outsourcing to India US based engineers in small enough numbers which Cisco refers to as “limited restructuring” starting at least as early as 2007, such that they do not have to file a WARN notice since the numbers are below the minimum number required to trigger the WARN notice.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/031209-cisco-downsizing-outsourcing.html
60 days to find a job within Cisco followed by 4 months salary as severance plus all accrued vacation time. Cisco also pays for Cobra insurance during the 4 months severance.
Cisco has been outsourcing since at least 2007. They just laid off (called a “limited restructuring” by Cisco) 750 people at various Cisco locations on Feb. 24.
John McCool, a Senior VP at Cisco, stated in a video blog on an Cisco internal website that 750 people at various Cisco sites were terminated on Feb. 24 (as part of a “limited restructuring” - Cisco only considers at least a 10% reduction in the workforce a layoff - per J. Chambers’ definition).
John Chambers also stated that a “layoff” is not a “layoff” unless 10% or more of the workforce is terminated. He is calling the current reductions a “limited restructuring”.
Not to mention the 20% that they want to outsource to India. It is a stated goal of Cisco to have 20% of the work force based in India.
Conditions have changed a lot since your post. Very few jobs that are posted are in the US. Most are in India or China. Some sites, e.g. Boxborough, MA currently have NO openings.
Is there any action on these managers?
Ben, Is there any action on these managers?
That’s because it wasn’t a poor decision.
162: I’ll be very surprised if Cisco actually fills (or even continues to lease) those buildings in Milpitas, though I suppose if Chambers wanted to help out the “Cisco family,” he could simply use those buildings as housing for a few of the American workers he’s laid off (and their families) so they don’t have to live in a fucking TENT CITY!
Whoever said Chambers should be shot is correct.
He also refuses to admit that “restructurings” were layoffs. He is being less than honest with the employee base. Only place to get the truth is in his public comments as he can get thrown in JAIL for lying there. He lies to employees with a smile on his face, is a special kind of asshole.
From a business perspective cutting salaries across the board makes very little sense because then EVERYONE starts looking for a new job, including your top performers.
According to John Chambers, it is not a layoff if less than 10% of the work force is terminated.
Isn’t the bottom 5% shown the door on a regular basis. So this is an on-going process and regular attrition. And in this economy Cisco can get the top 5% in the market as replacements. Makes perfect business sense, unless you have been shown the door.
I want to see more balance in hiring, and promotion. Right now there are BU’s (bldg 15 is one of them) with directors, managers, engineers, even the HR guy are Indians. And they have Cisco India development/testing plus 3rd party software shops in India.
Things are so obvious it is not even funny. Especially for those who are non-Indians and don’t quite get along with their style.
Yes, for those not of Indian descent who have been outsourced, escorted out, layoffed, restructured, reassigned, put in the bottom 5% or just give up and quit, you don’t know if this is a big Indian conspiracy. The demographic in some BU’s speaks for itself. And there is nothing anyone can do about it.
First off, let me begin by saying that I am not of Indian descent (nor should that matter). I believe the focus on whether a person is of a specific race/religion/etc should not matter as long as an employee continues to perform and not cause issues. Having worked at Cisco for over 10 years, I have survived 2 recessions (so far) to understand that in any work environment, things are never going to be perfect. Having said that, I believe there is a big disconnect these days between management and the employees.
A few bad apples should never be a cause for everyone in an organization to suffer. However, these days, the level of irresponsibility and professionalism by a large number of employees is frightening. In some cases, employees don’t even bother trying to hide that they skip work altogether, come in late, take extended (read 2-3 hr)lunches, and leave early. Unfortunately, executives and managers are too busy (understandably) these days to keep track of the day to day activities of their employees.
In the last round of limited reorgs (layoff), several good standing employees lost their jobs; at least 2 (that I know of) are at risk of losing their homes and livelihood (ability to pay mortgage, care for family, etc) — extremely sad. Those of us who continue to come to work and focus on our responsibilities are left to deal with employees that:
* don’t show up for meetings
* fail to deliver
* aren’t even at work
* bad mouth the company, management, other employees
* exhibit unethical behavior (I’ll skip the details)
The skip level meetings with executives have not resulted in any improvement and as much as ever, we have employees who simply don’t care and are only looking to collect a paycheck. The other day, I witnessed a pair of employees that were complaining that their manager was checking up on them (well, if they didn’t regularly take 3 hr lunches, would their be any problems?)
I have never been the type to partake in or follow these forums, but the environment at work is so bad now that we have employees simply given up hope for improvements. Some employees are asking management .. HELP HELP HELP, but their requests are going unanswered.
hey mr Mgr:
you are a big fool.. that is why managers should get fired before
the individual contributors…. get a life.
“* exhibit unethical behavior (I’ll skip the details)”
elaborating on those details-
- take 3hrs lunch
- spending many hrs on facebook, myspace, twitter
- watching youtube funny videos
- reading gossip mags
- come late to work, but always leave early, everyday
- always running to hr office to make petty complaints
Because I care about people who get laid off? Wow, not sure who abused you when you were little or not sure what you have against Indians, but you have issues.. Its ignorant people like you — actually its probably your lazy friends that abuse the system.
John is probably one of the people that are skipping work like you mentioned, note that fools like big worthless fools like him don’t like being called out
Word is that CMO did a LR last week, but mainly affected contractors