Cisco confirmed to at least two news outlets that it laid off about 3,500 employees since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic despite CEO Chuck Robbins’ pledge in April to not cut any jobs because of the pandemic.

“We’re actively involved in the community trying to help people who’ve been impacted by this, why would we contribute to the problem?” Robbins said in an April interview with Bloomberg. He also called on other companies to make similar promises.

“There are companies whose revenue has gone to zero who have no option,” Robbins said. “To me, it’s just silly for those of us who have the financial wherewithal to absorb this, for us to add to the problem. It’s illogical.”

A Cisco spokesperson did not respond to SDxCentral’s request for comment by press time.

But that feel-good response didn’t last very long. In October, Cisco reportedly began laying off about 9% of its workforce, or about 7,100 employees.

About a month later, on the company’s first-quarter fiscal 2021 earnings call with investors, Robbins didn’t mention layoffs, nor was he asked about the job cuts. However, anonymous Cisco employees expressed their displeasure on TheLayoff.com. One said the company also cut employee bonuses in half this year. “Bonus cut in half. Large layoffs. Earnings report was outstanding. OK,” another anonymous employee posted.

At the time, a Cisco spokeswoman declined to comment on company bonuses or how many employees will be affected by the job cuts. “Over the coming weeks and months, Cisco will increase our investments in key business areas that will drive customer satisfaction and partner profitability going forward and reduce investments in others,” the spokeswoman told SDxCentral. “We will be restructuring parts of our business as a result.”

Yesterday, however, Cisco spokeswoman Jennifer Yamamoto told The Washington Post that the company had “restructured” about 3,500 workers. Yamamoto disputed statements from two Cisco former employees who said they heard directly from managers at the company that Cisco planned to cut at least 8,000 employees, or more than 10% of its workforce.

When asked about Robbins’ pledge from April, Yamamoto told the newspaper Robbins “did not commit to no layoffs, but rather said we would preserve what we could depending on how the pandemic played out, and he would then assess the needs of the business every 60 days before making any decisions. As the pandemic continued, things changed in the macro landscape and we had to make some tough choices.”