Not "most likely" but definitely true. This is modern slavery. As one of the chest-thumping SED/Exec (as per id) from UK declared here proudly last week, technology is now a "commodity", or so thinks the top layer. He also declared that "innovation" at Cisco is a myth (which we knew already). Do keep in mind that this came from a person in management at a technology company (Cisco, in this instance). That is precisely the reason why Cisco is on a downhill slope - they treat technology and technologists like dirt, with the so-called "business guys" getting their back slapped. This will never work in the long term. The Board and ELT need to shed these prima donnas and LinkedIn marketing blurb guys and hire technologists to in decision making and budgetary positions. Otherwise, Cisco is as good as dead. Examples? Sundar Pitchai is from an elite IIT in India, so is Satya Nadella - not some from sh!tkicking management cert institute in b-m-f&*k , UK.
Sure, Google, MS, Meta everyone is laying off now. But Cisco is the ONLY company who does layoffs at a regular frequency, every year, sometimes every half-year. No other Silicon Valley company lays off people as much as Cisco does and the main reason is, they hire people for a targeted job and profile, for a limited period of time. Once those people have served their purpose, they just lay them off. In the older days, they used to sell off the slaves to worse conditions once the masters thought they were no longer in prime condition. Not very dissimilar here.