14,500 job cuts announced by Hewlett-Packard

July 19, 2005

Today the Hewlett-Packard Co. has announced that 10% or 14,500 of its full-time staff will be cut over the course of the next six quarters. HP CEO Mark Hurd, who took office about three months ago, has decided to simplify HP's operations by combining sales and marketing directly into business units. The job cuts are expected to save HP US$1.9 billion annually. These cuts are all part of HP's new restructuring plan, the savings from which will primarily be used to “offset market forces”, in other words, to strengthen HP's competitiveness in the market.

The job cuts come after prolonged analyst speculation that HP would be announcing between 10,000 and 25,000 losses. Few losses are expected in the areas of Sales or Research & Development.

Reactions
The media in Ireland, where HP has over 4,000 employees across seven business units, has reacted cautiously to the announcement urging that more details should be awaited for before making any comments. The news however has made national headlines and workers are understandably anxious to find out more details.