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Reports of Cisco considering firing employees surfaced last month. The networking company is said to have laid off around 5 per cent of the workforce, which is over 4000 employees. It is said that the layoffs are a part of "rebalancing" act while "rightsizing certain businesses".
As quoted by the report, Cisco hasn't directly commented on the layoffs but said in an official statement that it "didn't take this decision lightly" and "will offer those impacted extensive support, including generous severance packages".
The report quoted Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco, who did not divulge into giving direct details related to layoffs but said he would "be reluctant to go into a lot of detail here until we're able to talk to them. I would say that what we're doing is rightsizing certain businesses". "You can just assume that we're going to -- we're not actually -- there's nothing that's a lower priority, but we are rightsizing certain businesses," Robbins further told analysts.
According to Silicon Valley Business Journal, affected Cisco workers took to TheLayoff.com and Blind portal to talk about the job cuts at the firm. "Impacted by Cisco layoffs!" one of the Cisco employees said. "Looking for immediate (software engineering) referrals. Any help would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks," another affected employee added. Many other employees were found asking about the severance pay. The company hasn't revealed official details related to the matter.
Recently, Twitter, Meta, and Amazon laid off thousands of employees. Some reports now suggest that Google will begin mass layoffs very soon. The tech giant is currently said to be evaluating the performance of its employees and merging teams possibly to avoid unnecessary layoffs. Twitter has laid off nearly 5000 employees globally in the last couple of months, leaving only 20 odd employees working from India. Meta, on the other hand, laid off 11000 employees as a part of cost-cutting measures. CEO Mark Zuckerberg took full responsibility of the layoffs.
Read the full report here