Slashdot Mirror
Cisco Systems To Lay Off About 14,000 Employees, Representing 20% of Global Workforce (crn.com)
schwit1 writes from a report via CRN: Cisco Systems is laying off about 14,000 employees, representing nearly 20 percent of the network equipment maker's global workforce. San Jose, California-based Cisco is expected to announce the cuts within the next few weeks, the report said, as the company transitions from its hardware roots into a software-centric organization. Cisco increasingly requires "different skill sets" for the "software-defined future" than it did in the past, as it pushes to capture a higher share of the addressable market and aims to boost its margins, the CRN report said citing a source familiar with the situation. "The company's headcount as of April 20, 2016, was 73,104," reports CRN. "Cutting 14,000 employees would be the single largest layoff in Cisco's 32-year history."
UPDATE 8/17/16: Cisco has reported its fourth-quarter 2016 earnings and they have exceeded analysts' expectations.
UPDATE 8/17/16: Cisco has reported its fourth-quarter 2016 earnings and they have exceeded analysts' expectations.
Maybe their balance sheet is being affected by the droves of people who are refusing to pay 30-40% of the device cost per year for Smartnet maintenance.
Here we have 14,000 tech workers who probably could be retrained to work with software and yet we will dump money into these programs to train the next generation, and hiring H1-B workers instead.
Why do you presume they could or even would want to be trained to be software developers? Even if they could be trained (at substantial cost no doubt) that doesn't imply that they would be particularly competent. Just because someone works for a tech company doesn't mean they are an engineer. While Cisco no doubt has thousands of engineers they also have people who are accountants, marketing, sales, logistics, and every other task you can think of. It is doubtful that many of those people actually would want to become software developers.
You know these people are likely intelligent and could use the leg up to fill the gaps the company has, and instead it is just dump them on the street.
Why do you assume the company has 14,000 unfilled positions? If they are getting rid of that many people they don't have 14,000 economically valuable jobs available for them. Hiring people when you don't have a useful role for them is a one way ticket to bankruptcy. Even if Cisco wanted to train them, it usually takes YEARS to become competent in another line of work. You don't learn to be a good programmer or a good accountant or a good sales person in just 3 months.
This is the real tech world folks. Keep your kids out of it unless they absolutely love it on their own.
You could say that about any profession. My wife is a physician and she tells people who say they want to be a doctor that "if you can imagine yourself doing anything else you probably should". That job is too hard and takes too much from you to bother with if it isn't a calling. Furthermore that pretty much contradicts your point above. If they don't have a passion for software development why are you pushing them into it if it isn't their thing? I'm an engineer and I've done enough programming to know that it isn't what I want to do for a living and also that I'm not particularly good at it.
It is an ageist world which has no loyalty to workers at all, and falsely believes that people can't be retrained
It's adorable that you think companies ever did have loyalty to workers. Companies exist to make money. If loyalty to workers will most efficiently achieve that end then they will be loyal but it's unreasonable to expect such accommodation. People can be retrained but not necessarily for jobs the company has available. Frequently it is better in the long run for both the company and the worker to part ways. If my company came to me and said "you can keep your job if you retrain yourself to be a software engineer", I'd say thanks for the offer but I'll go succeed elsewhere because I have zero interest in doing that for a living.
How much global CISCO market share has been lost due to fear of NSA backdoors?
Somebody in senior management wants to make their bonus this year.
When I got laid off from Cisco in 2013, the CEO got a 60% raise despite having a lousy fiscal year. Rumor had it among the workers that he needed a new yacht to keep up with the other CEOs.