When Cisco celebrated the fifth anniversary of its New England Development Center in Boxborough, Mass., last fall – a ceremony attended by Massachusetts Congresswoman Niki Tsongas and a representative from Gov. Deval Patrick’s office – the company was quietly preparing to move several jobs from there and other locations to contractors in India and elsewhere, mostly in the company’s Network Management Technology Group (NMTG).
In Cisco parlance, a “limited restructuring” was underway, under the radar.
These “LRs,” as Cisco sources call them, are a way for the company to cut costs by reducing workforce in small, incremental moves without having to publicly announce or disclose the actions in compliance with U.S. Department of Labor regulations, like the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN). These specific NMTG LRs are separate from the planned reduction of 1,500 to 2,000 positions Cisco announced during its earnings call last month, which, the company says, complied fully with WARN and other federal labor regulations.