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Posted by ahmedomran8 12 hours ago

Cisco workforce reductions(blogs.cisco.com)
230 points | 239 commentspage 4
pjmlp 8 hours ago|
This is why you owe nothing to your employer, record revenue with management bonus, and layoffs for those that helped get there.

Those extra hours? Only if the team really needs them.

Naturally this tends to be something only seniors see, thus ageism.

Scroll_Swe 5 hours ago|
>Those extra hours? Only if the team really needs them.

? I started a new job a year ago. Overtime pay in contract. I gladly work and report overtime as I get paid way more :) BUT there has to be a real reason, such as deadline, alarm/alert and such.

You people are just lost. But I am in Sweden with a union job hehehe

pjmlp 5 hours ago|||
Same here, some of your southern neighbours also have unions on IT, as a union in general covers specific industries, regardless of what job each person does in the building.

As a tip for others as well, even without an union it helps to be aware of the country labour laws even if superficially.

dinkumthinkum 4 hours ago|||
Yeah, but compare the salaries to the US and then factor in taxes.
acdha 2 hours ago|||
Do this comparison both ways and factor in what you pay in addition for American high-stress/low-quality healthcare, college, retirement, etc. If you’re on the higher-end of the SV tech salaries, you’ll probably still come out ahead but for everyone else even Denmark tends to be cheaper.
pjmlp 4 hours ago|||
And healthcare, public transport, vacations, sick leave, maternity and paternity leave, layoff notice, layoff package, ....

Personally the salary isn't worth it.

totetsu 10 hours ago||
>To those leaving Cisco, thank you for your contribution, your dedication, and the mark you have made on this company. We are deeply grateful and are committed to handling this transition with the care, clarity, and respect that defines our culture.

Who the hell needs gratitude if you can't earn an income.. seeing all of these layoffs I cant help but think something along the lines of .. Those of use who greatest asset is our labor need to recognize the great risk it is at of going to 0 value in the near future, and renegotiate everything to get as much value out of that asset before it does. Like enough to retire on. And as with established theories of intelectual property rights protect creators moral rights to the profits of their work, there needs to be mandated moral rights that stop peoples labor being used as training data for AI without the consent, and without a path or compensation for the loss of income that will cause them.. Otherwise this is just one big transfer of power from most people, to people with capital, who can then wield that power in more capricious and selfish ways.

Scroll_Swe 5 hours ago||
Here you get laid off you need a notice 3 month in advance. America is just a hellscape but no need to be so drastic... companies still need to lay people off...
blitzar 5 hours ago||
> companies still need to lay people off...

The people who just gave you a 20% increase in profits in a year need to go?

Scroll_Swe 5 hours ago||
Yes, in a market economy layoffs still needs to happen.

What is your option? Companies keep people forever? In what economy does this work?

Please ask the Poles, Baltics and Eastern EU, when did their living standards increase? Was it joining EU or communist Soviet?

blitzar 5 hours ago||
layoffs at earnings results time never ever need to happen.

in a market economy you layoff people when functions, business, products or roles actually become redundant (or fire for cause / underperformance) rather than waiting potentially months till the end of the financial year to do it in a mass firing.

when you need new headcount, inventory or inputs to your supply chain you don't wait 7 months selling no products to see how full year revenue looks before you decide

if you are managing a team and have poor performers or functions that are no longer necessary, you should bring them up to scratch or manage them out immediately, not wait 11 months till the next eoy layoff round. these stupid layoff rounds promote dysfunctional organisations with bloat and keeping around dead weight or overhiring to sacrifice people at the altar of the consultant / mba / earnings juicing layoff rounds.

kjellsbells 10 hours ago||
lately I've been stuck by the similarities between the conversations workers are having now (we are toiling to increase someone else's capital, and need to reverse the imbalance of power) and the conversations people had in the 1920s and 30s.

With the benefit of hindsight we know that marxism didnt help, but I can see why the siren song was so attractive back then. Time to reread Eric Hobsbawm.

leopld 9 hours ago|||
Look at social democratic European states for inspiration. High unionization (supported by the state), unemployment benefits, cheap or free higher education.

Companies can still do layoffs, but that’s how you manage the consequences at a societal level.

I know the unionization part is contested these days in Europe, too - but it is still much stronger than in the US.

ivraatiems 9 hours ago||||
And to think, if they could just take less, and be satisfied being billionaires, not tens of billionaires, this could all be avoided... people don't ask for much. Give them a little, you'll be fine.

But that won't please The Market.

SpicyLemonZest 7 hours ago||
Chuck Robbins is not a billionaire. Yes, he's still extremely wealthy, but I really feel it's important to understand that that labor-capital relations are not primarily defined by people being greedy and wanting Bad Wealth when they could be satisfied with Good Wealth.
UltraSane 10 hours ago|||
Starting around 1970 the rich started working very hard to expressly undo the power labor gained during the New Deal.
bitmasher9 10 hours ago||
“We are running out of good ideas to execute on, so we are reducing our workforce to a quantity we can utilize.”
denkmoon 10 hours ago|
but there's still so many bad ideas available to be executed on
OccamsMirror 8 hours ago||
I want my LLM powered Firewall that checks with an agent on every connection request! AI powered security is the new hotness!
selcuka 7 hours ago||
> I could not be prouder of the growth you have all delivered for Cisco.

I think you could be. Just saying.

33MHz-i486 10 hours ago||
its sickening that these companies making 10s of Billions in profit annually at 60% gross margins are going to throw their employees that got them there under the bus.

layoffs are for at risk companies undergoing restructuring not semi-annual financial engineering of your earnings release

I’m not a big collective action proponent historically but in the face of this bs, it might be time.

renticulous 8 hours ago||
> that got them there under the bus.

Do you employ construction workers for lifetime after they have built your house?

zzrrt 6 hours ago|||
Among other differences, a house construction contract is understood to be limited in time.

Imagine the construction company said "record profits this year, thanks for building great houses, you're fired." The message wouldn't go over well. They are being outrageously cutthroat or hiding bad news.

xboxnolifes 6 hours ago||||
Ive seen this exact analogy on HN quite a few times now, and its a bit odd (read: nonsensical). You dont tend to employ construction workers directly to build your house. You contract a housing company, who contracts construction companies (or has inhouse workers), who do keep their employees employed.
renticulous 6 hours ago||
The individual is his own construction company in this scenario. Just like the construction company has to advertise itself to keep getting contracts, here the individual has to do the same with employers. The analogy is not superficial.
pnw_throwaway 5 hours ago|||
Found the corpo cuck
wahnfrieden 10 hours ago||
Layoffs are not “for” that. That’s your fantasy.

You believe more in the individual relationship each worker has with their employer to negotiate times like these? With what power? The employees did excellently so they are being let go. The individual worker has no leverage for anything.

lain98 7 hours ago||
Whenever a company does layoffs willy nilly frequently I stop trusting them with my career. The AI excuses are lazy.

I was laid off last year by one of the big tech companies, and they called me again for a rehire but I just dont trust them anymore even if they pay more. The layoff completely disrupted my life and I developed health issues because of the stress. Not worth the mental hassle.

I have seen a few workplaces which are more deliberate in their hiring and are not on 24x7x365 hire and fire mode unlike many of the big names. I would rather work in such a place rather than have 10 varieties of coffee and condiments in the pantry.

Frankly i'm pissed off.

Sorry for the people who pinned their hopes on cisco and were laid off yesterday. It's not easy.

sciencesama 10 hours ago||
how big is the WFR ?
dpe82 10 hours ago||
The press release states it clearly.
neilfrndes 10 hours ago||
4k, <5%
stack_framer 8 hours ago||
"...fewer than 4,000 jobs, representing less than 5 percent of our total employee base."

I cringe at this attempt to soften the numbers by saying "fewer than" and "less than" here. Conversely, and ironically, it also puts inflated numbers in your head.

"How many people will be axed at Cisco?"

"3,998 ... but at least it's fewer than 4,000!"

hirako2000 6 hours ago||
Dear reader, let's put it that way, the precise number is even more insignificant than 5%.

Contrast with the benefits of the path set onward. Small steps for humans, but a leap forward for humanity!

myst 6 hours ago||
The message is for the investors.
bodegajed 6 hours ago||
cisco executives will be rewarded with fat bonuses soon!
0x0000000 10 hours ago||
This kind of behavior is never tolerated in the market. Your revenue is flat; they lay you off. Right away. No trial, no nothing. Your revenue is down, right to layoffs, right away. Revenue grows but less than guidance? Layoffs. Record revenue exceeding guidance? Believe it or not, layoffs.
TSP00N3 9 hours ago||
lol! For those that didn’t get the Parks and Rec reference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw
mgh2 9 hours ago||
"Gel" comment
Barbing 8 hours ago||
Gel?
jacobrussell 8 hours ago||
"Gel" == "jail"

Watch the video above to get the reference :)

Barbing 7 hours ago||
Right away! Best videos in the world, gel
alephnerd 9 hours ago|||
> This kind of behavior is never tolerated in the market

This is Cisco. They do layoffs every quarter and have been doing so since the early 2000s.

Barbing 8 hours ago||

  This is outrageous. Where are the armed men who come in to take the protestors away? Where are they? This kind of behavior is never tolerated in Baraqua. You shout like that they put you in jail. Right away. No trial, no nothing. Journalists, we have a special jail for journalists. You are stealing: right to jail. You are playing music too loud: right to jail, right away. Driving too fast: jail. Slow: jail. You are charging too high prices for sweaters, glasses: you right to jail. You undercook fish? Believe it or not, jail. You overcook chicken, also jail. Undercook, overcook. You make an appointment with the dentist and you don't show up, believe it or not, jail, right away. We have the best patients in the world because of jail.
ivraatiems 10 hours ago||
We have the best market in the world, because of ~~AI bubble~~ layoffs.
cfgeorge 2 hours ago|
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