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.
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I read this message board with great interest as I am an Ex-Cisco employee (San Jose SW DEV)
Disclaimer - I was not affected by layoff; quit cisco San Jose job in march last year.
I must say, the Bash-India/ans fest going on everywhere is quite amusing. “Bad Programmers”, “Liars and cheaters”, “pathecic communication skills”, “aweful smell”, “code monkeys”, “slumdogs” are just some of the things I’ve seen used on this and other forums so far. What’s sad is that it is evident that some of my former colleagues harbored racist feelings all along that are just coming out now. As an Indian, I would always wonder if these guys don’t really like me deep in their heart even if they are being really nice to me. I always wondered if this is just a facade and this nagging feeling made me pack up and leave for India after spending 10 years in America. It’s just darn sad to see that may be - just may be I was absolutely right all along.
cheers and Peace!
12 million years ago, as a gorilla, I also used the feel the same was as most of you folks in this thread. I was seeing more and more humans replacing gorilla workers, majority of workers and managers were humans, gorillas used to get laid off. After a couple hundred years, humans entirely overtook gorillas due to their superior genetic makeup.
To all the gorillas on this thread, I suggest you to just accept that humans are a superior race and go on with your lives. There is no point in complaining!
I believe you have no idea about how evolution works! Evolution dosen’t produce a “superior” species — it randomly produces something, i.e., gorillas could have evolved into a super-human species, but, however, the so-called human species (like you) killed all of them because you found them to be a threat to your existence by gaming their trust in many different ways.
bye_bye_08:
This anti-indian/racist stuff is really bad, not amusing at all. Didn’t similar crap happen in post WW-I Germany because of a very bad economy?
Cisco was very fair and the severance is, by far, the best in the industry. Most impacted are Indians since the majority of Cisco engineers are Indians. What’s the % of American engineers in SV anyway? 5%?
The very small percentage of “whites”, myself included, are liked and being treated extremely well. I doubt it would be true the other way around.
One intern in my team claims he has a 3.8 GPA, but he is as dumb as my Chihuahua. He is Indian and now I have to question his credibility after reading this blog.
Getting high grades has little to do with creativity. I developed a compiler in high school but I never had a 3.8 GPA.
The problem is not racism! The problem is foreigners taking American jobs. It’s that simple. Like I said earlier, if this were happening in India, China or ANY other country there would be a major outcry. But, since we live in the US for some reason Americans are expected to roll over and take it. We are growing very tired of taking it obviously. This will become more and more apparent as the economy worsens.
I ask again to the non US citizens: In your country if a large percentage of jobs were taken by foreigners would you not be angry?
There is a reason why foreigners are taking American jobs:
1. The quality of education in America has deteriorated over the years.
2. Most American kids don’t graduate high school.
3. Successive governments have reduced spending on education. Budgets to schools and universities have been slashed.
4. American kids fare poorly in international competitions like Math Olympiad, for example.
5. Compare this will China and India where governments have been steadily increasing the quality of education. Haven’t you heard of IITs?
Once America fixes these fundamental problems, there is no need to depend on foreigners for these science and engineering jobs.
In UNICEF Ranking, U.S. Teens Come in 18th - by School Reform News staff - School Reform News.
In the first “big picture” comparison of the relative effectiveness of education systems across the developed world, UNICEF reported the United States came in 18th out of 24 nations when the results from five different international educational studies were combined into a composite average ranking
255: I agree. The US is the ONLY country that does not protect its citizen’s right to make a living. The short-sightedness of the government and big business is going to come back and bite them very very soon.
World War III here we come. Or maybe Civil War II. I think this only ends with war. A BIG war.
Warren Buffett hints at Indian successor
There was Midas, and then there’s Warren Buffett. The world’s greatest living investor has been justly hailed as the Oracle of Omaha his
financial skills catapulted him to the status of the worlds richest man last year, ahead of buddy and bridge partner Bill Gates, and Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helu.
Now, Buffett has hinted that his successor may be a person of Indian origin, Ajit Jain. In his annual letter to shareholders of his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett showered praise on Jain, who handles the reinsurance division.
He wrote, Ajit came to Berkshire in 1986. Very quickly, I realized we had acquired an extraordinary talent. So I did the logical thing: I wrote his parents in New Delhi and asked if they had another one like him at home. Of course, I knew the answer before writing. There isn’t anyone like Ajit.
Jain is a graduate of IIT Kharagpur and has an MBA from Harvard. A former McKinsey executive, he migrated to the US as his wife was keen to live there.
Buffett calls the reinsurance division “one of the most remarkable businesses in the world” because it employs only 31 people but generates billions. “It features very large transactions, incredible speed of execution and a willingness to quote on policies that leave others scratching their heads. When there is a huge and unusual risk to be insured, Ajit is almost certain to be called.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Warren-Buffett-hints-at-Indian-successor/articleshow/4209982.cms
#260
“Berkshire’s fourth-quarter net income fell 96 percent to $117 million, the firm said yesterday”
“while the insurance and utilities businesses fared well because their prospects aren’t correlated with the economy”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aFmgGBH8rr4Y&refer=home
#258,258
http://www.uspto.gov/go/taf/cst_all.htm
Intelligence is different than a standardized test.
#249, most the managers are indians and only promote with in each other.. it is indian mafia which rules cisco.. it is a freaking joke.
This is not a freaking joke. Is Cisco management saying all these postions cannot be filled by non-Indians and only Indians are qualified?
This is very serious and should be investigated by EEOC.
#262, The answer is yes, they cannot be filled by dumb non-Indians worker or managers.
Of course the people calling the shots are Cisco Indian managers.
I watched as non-Indian workers/mangers tranferred or quit in the BU I was with.
Whoever has lost their jobs, read carefully on how we can get your job back. This is very important.
Read about new PERM guidelines that is issues by DOL, regarding supervised Recruiting.
DOL is now going to organize a supervised recruitment for the Green Card applicant. A Certifying Officer will be assigned to each organization. Some of the firm that laidoff US citizens may be under scrutiny. I don’t want to publish their names.
If you are a citizen and you lost your job and if your co-worker has filed a Green Card for the same position as yours and is still working for your firm, in that case, you can approach the DOL and explain them everything. They will direct you to the CO assigned for your corporation. Your corporation will have a hard time proving that you don’t fit the role, that you were in for so many years. If they cannot prove the point, you may get your job back and the Green Card and H1B for your co-worker may be suspended and he may have to leave the country in 30 days.
Everybody,
Please start reading on “Supervised Recruiting”.
We may get our jobs back.
DOL Advises to Expect More Supervised Recruitment in PERM Cases
Wednesday, 18 February 2009 17:32
Due to the current state of the economy, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has recently advised that employers in industries should expect to start receiving more supervised recruitment notices on PERM applications. A PERM application is an application that is filed by an employer on behalf of a foreign national after an extensive recruitment process has determined that there are no qualified and available U.S. workers to fill a particular position. The PERM application is, in many cases, the first step on the road to U.S. permanent residence for a foreign national.
The DOL has not singled out any specific jobs or locations that are likely to be subjected to supervised recruitment other than Financial Analysts in New York City. However, employers should anticipate that DOL will carefully review pending PERM applications against actual data regarding layoffs in the area in order to determine whether there appear to have been so many layoffs in the field or geographic area that supervised recruitment should be required before a PERM application may be approved.
DOL Startled by Rising Unemployment
February 13, 2009 – 8:09 am
The Department of Labor (DOL) is startled by rising unemployment figures and has started to take steps towards minimizing unemployment and protecting US workers. Nearly 1.2 million jobs were lost in the last five months and 180,000 jobs were lost in the last month alone. DOL is astonished with the fact that millions of US workers are laid off but there is no decrease in PERM filing.
To begin with, DOL has increased supervised recruitment to try and counter continued layoffs. Thus far, after issuing supervised recruitment notices the employers have withdrawn more than half of the cases, creating suspicions that majority of PERM cases filed were sham. DOL will study the layoffs data collected through its field offices and will rigorously pursue supervised recruitments in coming days to ensure employers are properly testing the labor market for availability of US workers.
Sphere: Related Content
#261,
What’s your point about patents? Are you ripping SAT and GRE or some other standardized testing?
Are you saying US has more patents, so Americans are smarter?
I am just curious.
15 Feb 2009 00:29
02/14/2009: Tough Times Ahead for Professional Foreign Workers in EB-Based Nonimmigrant or Immigrant Journeys
The just relased arrests and indictments of eleven people for H-1B frauds by U.S. District Attorney in Iowa may not be taken as an isolated event or incident. It is a signal showing government’s determination to crack down abuse of the employment-based nonimmigrant and immigrant proceedings for the purpose of alleged protection of U.S. workers’ jobs. This is a union-backed government. Besides, current economic crisis allegedly mandates the government leaders to take an action to protect American workers’ jobs. No one will be in surprise to see Senators Durbin and Grassley reintroducing sooner or later their H-1B and L-1 reform legisation which they introduced last year but failed to make it before the last Congress closed at the end of 2008. The H-1B and L-1 reform legislation will mandate the agencies’ reinforcement of enforcement activities against the abuse of such visas and tighten the threshold requirements for these visas in a line similar to the TARP-funded employer H-1B rules. Reinforcement of enforcement actions is soon to be made easy because of the two developments. One is reengineering of agencies’s filing system and database in a direction of “account” system for each involved employer, each representative, and each alien worker, allowing detection of violation of the rules easy. The USCIS has been pushing such reengineering process in the form of electronization of filing of petitions and applications using “account” system and building such database. The DOL has also been working on such reengineering and is scheduled to implement it beginning from May 2009 for H-1B labor condition application filing using new ETA 9035 form which is designed to accomodate such account system and dababase and from July 2009 for PERM labor certification application filing using new ETA 9089 form which is also designed to accomodate such concept. The other development that makes the government’s enforcement activities easy is electronization and data-sharing system among different agencies and their database. Electronization of the processes makes such data sharing available and easy among the related agencies. Expansion of E-Verify programs allows the Social Security Administration to participate in such enforcement process. Timing of release of recent indictment of evelen alleged H-1B visa fraud offenders is in a way not just a coincident.
The Chief of DOL Division of Foreign Labor Certification, Dr. William Carlson, released as recent as February 2, 2009 that in the first quarter (October, November, December 2008) of FY 2009, they completed about 4,500 PERM applications, but in one month of January 2009 alone, they completed about 3,500 applications. But don’t get excited about this statistics. He cautioned that the processing times would slow down as they feed into adjudication process investigation of unemployment conditions in various labor markets, increasingly turning cases into so-called “supervised recruitment” process considering worsening labor markets and rising unemployment. When the agency posted the supervised recruitment Q&A on its website quite some time back, we speculated that it was intended to send out a signal that they would increase supervised recruitment cases ahead. It has turned out that it was not just speculation. Worse yet, the Chief stated that once a case is turned into a supervised recruitment track, there is no set processing time implying that it can take time and time. When the PERM system is already clogged bad, the information is indeed depressing. On top of all of these, the newly designated Republican Commerce Secretary who was known to be a H-1B program supporter all of sudden backed out from participation in the Obama administration. Year 2009 may be marked as a difficult year for foreign workers, particularly professional foreign workers.
Indian IT folks that I have worked with/interviewed at Cisco have been either great or horrible. So far there has been no middle ground. I find it really odd. The great ones know what they are doing, are professional and very competent. The horrible ones always have degrees and many technical certifications but somehow know NOTHING related to their so called expertise. The latter are really starting to make it difficult for other Indian engineers, or at least in my BU. Before the freeze we become very wary of any engineering interviewee from India.
#253 - Thank You for the toughtful post.
#256 - I guess nobody is saying Americans are expected to roll over and take it, but before blaming “foreigners” for all job loss, it probably is prudent to do introspection. Please keep in mind, all immigrants are grateful to US as it has given them better life in most cases and also immigrants realize that Americans are probably among the most accomodating people on earth.
However, at any graduate level engineering course, when you look at the ratio of American (rather white Americans) to others, I believe you will get your answers. Do not trust any statistics - Just see for yourself. I was hired after completing MSEE from a good university and I do not think I was picked specifically because I was Indian. But close to 70%-75% people graduating with me were non-US-born people. That’s just the truth.
Now as some of you suggest, not all Indians are great engineers, but truth of the matter is many of them possess enough skills to get the job done - Cheaper (H-1B imports) or otherwise (US educated Indian engineers)
cheers & peace.
#253,
Excellent observation. This however does not justify that only Indians are in many positions of management and overwhelming number of Indian enginers are employed in certain Cisco BU’s.
You stated that 70 - 75% graduated are not US born. But these include all other nationalities. This is certainly not the case within the ranks in certain Cisco BU’s.
This conversation has deviated, strangely enough, to a debate on which race is best? Beware the lessons of history lest we repeat them!!! Exclusion turns to Animosity, Animosity turns to Hatred, and Hatred turns to the Unspeakable…
273: You’d sing a different tune if your job had been sent to India. It’s time say it - AMerican Jobs for Americans. Welcome to America - now go home.
Please bring it to the attention of the authorities.
http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/cases/2004,0928-cisco_systems.pdf
Please read this artical on how CISCO was denied Green Card under Supervised Recruitment
Sounds like CISCO is now under Supervised Recruitment (investigated)
Law Firms Must be Babysat by DOL
July 10th, 2008 · 1 Comment
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Who can forget the Cohen & Grigsby How To NOT Hire an American video series ? Well, one year later, the DOL has announced:
it has begun placing pending permanent labor certification applications filed by the Cohen & Grigsby law firm into department-supervised recruitment. Supervised recruitment requires the employer to receive advance approval from the department for all recruitment efforts to ensure that U.S. workers are fully considered for available positions.
The department may institute supervised recruitment when, among other reasons, it has concerns that an employer, attorney or agent may not have complied with department regulations or properly recruited or considered U.S. workers for available positions.
….
Last year, the department began auditing applications filed by Cohen & Grigsby as a result of information indicating the firm may have improperly advised its clients regarding the recruitment of U.S. workers. Because of concerns identified in the audits, the department is requiring supervised recruitment for certain applications filed by Cohen & Grigsby
One must ask themselves what is an immigration law firm doing in the High Tech employment recruitment business for their clients in the first place? Well, there is a new investigation against Fragomen, the law firm Cisco uses, involving writing bogus job ads, routed to the immigration firm itself and only for purposes of avoiding hiring Americans.
One must ask themselves what is an immigration law firm doing in the High Tech employment recruitment business for their clients in the first place? Well, there is a new investigation against Fragomen, the law firm Cisco uses, involving writing bogus job ads, routed to the immigration firm itself and only for purposes of avoiding hiring Americans.
The DOL even debarred LawLogix Group Inc from filing applications for permanent labor certification. The debarment will be in effect for three years. Seems they were automatically filing bogus applications through automated software. That is how U.S. jobs are looked at by corporations and these immigration law firms, simply a fee to capture, no real people attached!
Now look at the immigration attorneys’ respoonses. My, my, they sure are not threatened, more they are outraged that the DOL is interfering with their business:
The recruitment mandated under 20 CFR 656 is a labor market test - it is not intended to be a recruitment process culminating in the hiring of a US worker. However, we stand by our long-stated position that nothing in 212(a)(5)(A) permits DOL to shove a labor market test down employers’ throats
Get that? The immigration attorneys believe jobs for Americans in the United States is one big game, one doesn’t actually have to look for or hire Americans. The legal loopholes in the law, which they helped manipulate, are written into these statues, so they maybe are right on this one.
They also believe that the DOL is simply running a Press release war.
Well, a press release war or not, what these immigration attorneys do is make sure Americans are displaced and getting a hell of a lot of money for it in the process. Guest worker Visas need serious reform and a good place to start is passing Guest Worker and Employment Based Green Card reforms.
Don’t think processing people is a business for these attorneys? Look at the rush to get into the legal practice area. We seriously, seriously need to offshore outsource attorneys for only then will they wake up and stop making huge bucks by being glorified slave traders for the global marketplace.
Everbody,
Whoever has lost their jobs please read # 279, you can get your job back.
Please spread the word.
280: Sadly, not if you were a contactor. That only applies if you were FT.
Correction: Contractor.
Yes # 279 is only for FTE.
Please find out who the Certifing Officer for your organisation is and explaim him your R & R and get your job back.
JackBauer,
Deprtment of Labor is aware of this and like I mentioned earlier, DOL has issued new guideline on PREM process (read Supervised Recruitement).
DOL Startled by Rising Unemployment
The Department of Labor (DOL) is startled by rising unemployment figures and has started to take steps towards minimizing unemployment and protecting US workers. Nearly 1.2 million jobs were lost in the last five months and 180,000 jobs were lost in the last month alone. DOL is astonished with the fact that millions of US workers are laid off but there is no decrease in PERM filing.
To begin with, DOL has increased supervised recruitment to try and counter continued layoffs. Thus far, after issuing supervised recruitment notices the employers have withdrawn more than half of the cases, creating suspicions that majority of PERM cases filed were sham. DOL will study the layoffs data collected through its field offices and will rigorously pursue supervised recruitments in coming days to ensure employers are properly testing the labor market for availability of US workers.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc2009029_333899.htm
Ok. To make the long story short: Do not blame H1B guest workers; we are in the same boat, thanks to the recession. However the author does not tell us: do we have to be in the same boat? Useless article.
This land was here thousands of years before you were born and will be here thousands of years after you all die.
Native Americans(American Indian), Indians from India, Asians, Euro Caucasians(Whites), and African Americans(Blacks), you are all screwed when Cisco decides to layoff 14,000 people. I used the quotes in case you had no idea where you come from.
Any news on any more layoffs?
One thing is for sure. Many (note, not all) are experts at lying on their resumes. And not just on their resumes. They know what to say to get the job. This is to be expected. They come from a country where corruption is rife both in industry and government. Never, for example, give a take home test to a group of students that are primarily indian. The probability of cheating will be much higher.
More on deception: you can say anything about your work experience in india. Your employer is not likely to check, especially if you are a contractor. In fact, if your employer got you through a vendor, it might even be expected that the vendor did the employment verification.
I’ll give you an anecdotal example of someone I know. This person lied on her resume to get a job as an oracle developer. She got it. And got fired because she did not know enough. Eventually, she got another job, and got fired again, but this time she stayed in longer. The third time, she knew just enough to keep the job.
Also, there’s no doubt that cisco prefers H1-b. It’s a cost thing. You can pay them less and they are less likely to leave on their own. Of course there are qualified US citizens, but why pay more when you don’t have to?
Many of the jobs at cisco are for instance, for java programmers. This is not a specialized skill that cannot be found in the US. Yes, true expert level java programmers are hard to find (these would probably not be work for cisco anyway), but that is not for the most what cisco hires; in fact cisco is filled with mediocre or less then mediocre java programmers. (Yes there are exceptions)
It’s very strange that most of the CDO choice hires (referring here only to engineers) are indian who got their BS in india and have just finished their 2-year MS here. Where are the American kids? Is that the ones from the top universities just don’t want to come to cisco? Or is it because most of them are H1-bs?
The machinations of indian-owned body shops are also to blame for the large indian population at cisco. If indians know how to get a job based on deception, body shops are the true hustlers. They know how to get jobs for their bodies. They’ll even rewrite resumes, often stretching the truth to fit the job description. Furthermore, they will shield the job opening from the public. If you are a hiring manager, you go to your favorite contracting vendor (often indian owned) and ask for someone with a specific skill set. You probably don’t post directly on a job site. The vendor then supplies resumes from his pool of mostly indian H1-bs. A good portion of contractors then go on to become full-time employees.
Also this leads to a formula for the indian immigrant (paticularly the south indian immigrant). One that has been followed by hundred of thousands. As a young immigrant, you might work a few years in india (you may or may not have a BS), come here, hook up with a body shop, get a job (at this point you might be low paid since you are being exploited by the body shop because you have an h1-b and they are doing your green card), work, and eventually you may find a way to break the shackles of your employer. In the meantime you buy a used car. A couple of years down the road you find a wife, go to india, bring her back here (and she starts her masters in comp sci at a local university, because in india, paticularly south india, doctors tend to marry doctors and software engineers tend to marry software engineers), and upgrade your car to high-end luxury model. As I write, I realize that every detail of the forumla is worked out for the young indian immigrant, from marriage (finding bride is a straightforward but tedious process) to job (again, a straightforward but tedious process).
One thing I have to clarify, for one I’m not an Indian, but I would admit I’m on H1. Part of the filing process for an H1 petition is to get a prevailing wage, this was implemented to make sure there’s a fair salary amongst people with the same skills and level of experience whether foreigner or US Citizen or Resident.
But I do echo your plights of making sure US Citizens/residents are taken care of, and the fact that immigrants should be accomodated but not at the expense of qualified and rightful natives.
And in closing before a person is made full time employee at Cisco there’s a company called hire right that performs background check and also verifies if the credential and information provide are bona fide
Well Anonymous- it is not so easy as you think. If INDIANS were really faking then what is the US govt doing? Why is CISCO getting so big a profits ?
Cisco is an International Company, whose sole motive is to make profit. It is not a non-profit government organization. So, in my opinion, all this discussion is useless. John Chambers will do everything in his power to remain profitable and I don’t blame him for that. End of matter.
And just to confirm, there has been a company-wide “limited re-structuring” and no particular “race” was treated specially. Everyone has been affected.
You answered it yourself.Whats wrong in working hard for a living finding a wife and settling down in life instead of dropping out of college,costly prenups and eventual divorce.
The only point i agree with you is the bodyshops who exploit engineers.Write to your senators and lawmakers to stop the H1B visa program say for an year.
Other than that America is a country of immigrants who come here for a better life .Those who work hard get the fruits of their labor.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/04/technology/breaking_views.breakingviews/index.htm?postversion=2009030411
Any new lay offs now?
Is it true that the new round of layoffs started?
Yes, no particular “race” was treated specially, and I ask you, how do you know this?
Because I know enough people on both the sides, who have been affected. The only major criterion seems to be the team you are working in.
I see bunch of L1 visa holders employees of saytam, tcs, infosys, wipro and other offshore companies work in Cisco’s San Jose building, is that legal. I heard L1 - is meant for Inter compant transfer , the resource is expected to work out of company premise and not at client (Cisco or any client) site. I have a list of individual names.
I am planning to make a complaint against, whom can I contact.
And some faking helps. It is just how it’s done.
Indian school of business
Rajpat (father): I want you to marry a girl of my choice.
Son:” I will choose my own bride!!!”
Rajpat: “But the girl is Bill Gates’s daughter..”
Son: “Well, in that case… ok”
Next Rajpat approaches Bill Gates.
Rajpat: “I have a husband for your daughter….”
Bill Gates: “But my daughter is too young to marry!!!!!”
Rajpat: “But this young man is a vice-president of the World Bank.”
Bill Gates: “Ah, in that case… ok”
Finally Rajpat goes to see the president of the World Bank.
Rajpat: “I have a young man to be recommended as a vice-president..”
President: “But I already have more vice- presidents than I need!”
Rajpat: “But this young man is Bill Gates’s son-in-law.”
President: “Ah, in that case… ok”
And that, my friend, is how Indians do business!.