HP Increases Layoffs AGAIN To 55,000, And More Cuts Are Likely

Yahoo Finance via Business Insider ^ | 10/06/2014 | Julie Bort

[SeekAndFind]

As HP cleaves itself in two, the company will also trim another 5,000 employees from its payroll.

And even that won't be the end of a massive multiyear layoff that grows bigger every few months, HP CEO Meg Whitman essentially told CNBC's Dan Farber on Monday.

HP first announced its layoffs plans in 2012. Back then, HP said it would cut 27,000. By June of this year, it had doubled the target, to 50,000, with 36,000 employees already gone.

On Monday, it bumped up the new layoff target, yet again, to 55,000. Even so, HP remains an enormous employer, with over 330,000 employees worldwide, and that means that when HP reorganizes itself, it will likely make even more cuts.

This is what Whitman said about it on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street."

Whitman: I think for 2015 in terms of this restructuring, we are done. Now when you split companies apart, typically, and we have looked at all of the other ones that have been done, often there is again realignment of the workforce, but we'll see how it goes.

...

Faber: Well, it sounds to me, from that answer, that conceivably there are going to be more job cuts to come for these two companies.

Whitman: We have to organize ourselves for these companies to win in the market. Now, the truth is, we're a lot more efficient than we were, you know, three years ago, as you can see. But we have to set these companies up to win, that is our mission.

This news must be frustrating for HP employees, but it can't be a surprise. HP has been in a near-constant state of restructuring since 2008 when it bought EDS for $13.9 billion (then-CEO Mark Hurd's signature deal), which doubled its workforce to about 400,000.

[Resolute Conservative]

So do we still have a shortage of STEM workers or do we keep importing more losers?

[Da Coyote]

Ah, the good old days when HP manufactured real electronics with real value.

And to be an HP employee then was like being an Apple employee now.

Then came the sales wench. “Off with their brands. HP now sells printers and ink. Talented engineers must never use the brand of salescritters.”

And now, we have HP, a “brand name” equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize. Soon to be further split into two even lesser brands.

[wally_bert]

I miss good HP printers. The 4000 series was one of the best. Not fast or fancy but rock solid reliable.

[MrEdd]

Tech markets are unkind to shoddy engineering.
No matter how established you are.

[FatherofFive]

Ah, the good old days when HP manufactured real electronics with real value.

The HP 12c was the best calculator ever made.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: And to be an HP employee then was like being an Apple employee now.

A little history for those who don’t know....

During a guided tour of a newly renovated computer museum, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak highlighted the fact that he had offered his original design for the Apple I personal computer to his former employer, HP, 5 times, but was turned down each time.

And Steve Jobs was rejected by the recruiting process at HP, despite all his talent, simply because he had no college degree.

[Jack Black]

[5thGenTexan]

I really liked and still have my 41cv.

[Cboldt]

15c

[Jack Black]

And Steve Jobs was rejected by the recruiting process at HP, despite all his talent, simply because he had no college degree.

I'm not sure that his talent was very evident, as that was before he founded Apple. It would take a rare interviewer indeed to figure out that the slacker in front of you, with almost no qualifications, is in fact a talented genius.

Also, consider this, if Jobs had been hired by HP would he ever have given up that good job to go build things in the garage? If HP had said yes to Wozniak would the Apple (HP) 1 & 2 series ever led to the Mac.

[HamiltonJay]

And the disaster that was Carly continues....

So, lets send her to the Senate....

[lump in the melting pot]

48G. I still have my original, plus a free app that mimics it on my android phone, as a backup.

[Cboldt]

HP made a reissue version of the 15c. So, now I have two of them, an original and a reissue. Also have the 48c app.

The manuals of the day were really good, too.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: And the disaster that was Carly continues....

So, lets send her to the Senate....

_______________________

C’mon, she hasn’t been with the company since 2005.

Are we to believe that she is worse than Barbara Boxer when it comes to economic policies?

[The Sons of Liberty]

As HP cleaves itself in two, the company will also trim another 5,000 employees

I wonder how many H1Bs Hussein 0bama and the crooks in congress will be pushing to bring in?

[smokingfrog]

I remember HP making some cheap tablet computers a few years ago that were a big flop, but I can’t think of anything else. Of course, they probably have a lot more competition these days from the likes of Samsung, ASUS, Acer, Toshiba, Lenovo, etc. I still think they make some darn good laser printers.

[Syntyr]

"Ah, the good old days when HP manufactured real electronics with real value." They still do. We are still buying plenty of storage and blade servers from them. You would be amazed at what a RAID 5 75 Terabyte blade server looks like nowdays...

[catnipman]

Guess printers that quit after a year plus insanely expensive ink packs isn’t working out that well for ‘em after all. For sure, their PCs are some of the worst on the market for premature hardware failure. SquareTrade has proven that for a fact.