Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman is expected to unveil a massive restructuring of the company next Wednesday that will eliminate around 30,000 jobs.
Business Insider put the cuts at 10 to 15 percent of its 320,000-employee work force, but Bloomberg has pegged the number at 25,000.
Between 10,000 to 15,000 positions will be cut from the Enterprise Services Group, according to Bloomberg, which noted plans could still change. The Enterprise Services Group, which sells a range of IT offerings, is expected to release poor results in the quarter. The company may ship more work offshore as part of the restructuring.
Additionally, employees with eight to 10 years of experience, or at the top of their pay scales, could be more vulnerable, Business Insider says.
Voluntary retirements will be one big piece of the puzzle, with a goal of 5,000 people, says All Things Digital. And the outright cuts, it says, could be stretched out over a year — a tactic analyst Rob Enderle has warned Yahoo against as damaging morale among those who are left.
Whitman’s plan appears to be a textbook move of instituting one big layoff, then getting everybody focused on the company’s new direction, Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, told Dice.com.
Whitman told The Wall Street Journal in March that “everything is on the table” in the restructuring, though she didn’t release layoff numbers at the time. She announced then that she was combining the PC and printing divisions, and nixed plans to spin off the PC unit. Whitman also noted that she hoped to eke out more money for research and development.
The need to invest in R&D after the slash-and-burn style of former CEO Mark Hurd will be central to Whitman’s restructuring, says AllThingsD.
Over the years, and especially under former HP CEO Leo Apotheker, software has played an increasing role in the company’s strategy. Enderle says that anything outside of software “can expect cuts.”
Though HP has its woes, it has experienced some high notes lately. In the first quarter, it retook the lead in the worldwide client PC market from Apple, and this month launched its long-awaited HP Cloud Services.
Related Links:
- Hewlett-Packard Said to Consider Cutting as Many as 25,000 Jobs [Bloomberg]
- 25,000 Job Cuts Are Coming To HP [Business Insider]
- HP’s Whitman to Announce Restructuring Plan Wednesday; 30,000 Jobs Targeted [All Things Digital]
- CEO Whitman Tells H-P’s Workers ‘Everything Is on Table’ in Overhaul [WSJ]
- Yahoo Layoffs: When the Light at the End of the Tunnel Is a Train [IT Business Edge]
I wonder if HP will whine about a worker shortage right after they fire 25,000 employees.
Of course they will. HP is one of the biggest whiners about “worker shortages”.
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