back to article Cisco preps the P45s for 500 unlucky UK staffers

Cisco's UK staffers are beginning to feel the cold, sharp edge of the networking borg's axe, with up to 500 souls put at risk of redundancy across its entire local operation, multiple sources have confirmed to The Register. Switchzilla had said in August that a total of 5,500 global employees would be chopped this year, …

  1. James 51

    Stuff like this drives me crazy. They are selling more and making more money, what's to stop them doing this and the new thing at the same time? By axing staff now they are limiting their ability to grow the profits in the places they are already doing business. If I was a major shareholder I'd be asking to have the borg's heads examined.

  2. Korev Silver badge

    Far too many jobs lost

    Is anyone keeping tally on the number of jobs going at the big tech firms in the UK at the moment? Off the top of my head we've had HPE, IBM, Microsoft/Skype and now Cisco swinging the axe. It feels like how things were in pharma research a few years ago. In both cases the mainstream media doesn't seem to care, but for some reason factories and mines shutting is news.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Re: Far too many jobs lost

      it's unfortunately the way these things go. They hire 10,000 for new pet project, when they get bored of that, sack those 10,000 and hire a load in a completely different area. Rinse and repeat.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Far too many jobs lost

      And to make it worse, these companies are profitable. Not like a factory loosing a million a month.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Far too many jobs lost

        loosing? loosing?

        I do apologise.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They may be profitable (pre separation HP for example used to make $1bn a quarter NET profit) but that's no longer sufficient. A company must also grow revenue so as to make more money for its shareholders.

    No, it doesn't really make sense that a profitable company can be seen as failing but that's the way it works these days.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      The 90 day dealine

      for Wall St has a lot to answer for and in my mind, nothing positive.

      Companies have to post increasing sales and profits (and decreasing expenses) every 90 days of Wall St starts selling the stock like crazy.

      This makes company embark on a continual re-org in search of the holy grail, a year of positives in Growth of sales and profits and decreases in expenses, ie Staff Salaries.

      Dell has the right idea. Now that it is private thay don't have to take part in the 90 day merrygoround.

      I wish more companies would do this and stick a few big fingers up at the overpaid idiots on Wall St.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The 90 day dealine

        Dell has the right idea. Now that it is private thay don't have to take part in the 90 day merrygoround.

        So the 3,000 redundancies Dell announced a few days back are somehow different?

        "This P45 is not just a redundancy, it is a Dell redundancy". Does that make it better?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cisco, HP, IBM. All Zombie walking dead companies now. You can hide a lot of stupid decisions until the money runs out. Playing games with numbers and stock buybacks hide it for awhile.

    1. Nate Amsden

      Not that I entirely disagree but it seems kind of funny so many of the "hot big and sometimes new" companies are the ones that constantly lose money, meanwhile the old boring ones that keep laying people off often make tons of money(and have even more in the bank). Sure some of their businesses may be in decline to some extent but if I were a betting person I would think that in many cases these old big companies will run out of cash long after the newer companies that seem to live paycheck to paycheck.

  5. Down not across

    Profits up? What should we do?

    In the 12 months to the end of July this year, Cisco banked $10.7bn (£8.2bn) in profit, up 20 per cent on the year-ago period, from sales of $48.7bn (£37bn), up three per cent.

    Profits are up. What should we do? Thank our workforce and maybe dish out a bonus or something for the good work? Nah, lets fire a whole bunch instead.

    Seems to be the current MO for most companies. Not helped by the chase of perpetual growth.

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