Cisco lays off 250 in first wave of cuts

[OhioChick]

Source: The Register

But don't call them layoffs

26th February 2009 23:30 GMT

Cisco has begun the layoff process it had announced earlier, with approximately 250 people exiting its San Jose, California headquarters this week, along with more throughout its worldwide operations.

The total number of lost jobs isn't clear, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, but they won't be the only ones the networking leader will shed.

During the company's February 4 financial conference with reporters and analysts, Chairman and CEO John Chambers estimated that the final head-count in this round of layoffs would be between 1,500 and 2,000.

According to Chambers, however, the company's shedding of employees is not a layoff, but instead a "realignment and restructuring of resources to new opportunities."

In a Q&A published in conjunction with the financial report. Chambers responded to a question about layoffs by saying: "Being very transparent, our definition of a company-wide layoff, if we had to do one, probably would be to lay off at least 10 per cent of our workforce. In very direct terms, we are not going to consider a layoff at this point in time."



Read more: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/cisco_layoffs/

[MADem]

1. If those poor bastards can collect unemployment, its a layoff.

I need larger print or new glasses. I thought it said "Crisco" lays off 250....I was wondering how many people it took to run an assembly line that produces a canned, lard-ish product and a cooking oil?

[Regret My New Name]

2. Maybe this explains the double in pricing of their certification exams...

Doesn't China need to lock their people from the internet or something? I'm sure there's some more business somewhere.

[CatholicEdHead]

3. They need the money

I am studying for the CCNA right now and hope there is some local market if I get them, and it is not all outsourced to India so they remote in to maintain the routers, switches, etc...

[Regret My New Name]

5. I'm recerting my CCNA tomorrow. I lost track of when it expired thinking I still had a year...

So when I went to check out my stuff to take a CCNP exam I noticed my CCNA wasn't for valid for the past three months... You live next to any hosting companies that have their own data centers?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. "We have $26 Billion in cash, the sky is not falling for us." Cisco CEO John Chambers

He said that in December

[populistdriven]

6. John Chambers, CEO of Cisco gave $25,000 to the GOP in '03

John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco Systems Inc., also donated $2,000 to the Bush campaign, after donating $25,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee last year.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=5617

The majority of Cisco's employees donations went to Democrats in '04.

http://pcworld.about.com/news/Aug202004id117487.htm

[OhioChick]

7. Interesting..... n/t