Skip to footer

Hewlett-Packard to dump 2,000 more workers

Hewlett-Packard will cut 2,000 more jobs than it had previously announced, bringing the total up to 29,000 by October 2014. The Hewlett-Packard layoffs may be a sign that the slumping personal computer market will weaken even further.

|
Denis Balibouse/Reuters/File
The HP Invent logo is pictured in front of Hewlett-Packard international offices in Meyrin near Geneva in this 2009 file photo. Hewlett-Packard said Monday, Sept. 10, 2012 that it will cut 2,000 more jobs than it reported back in May.
  • By The Associated Press

| San Francisco

Hewlett-Packard Co. is planning to cut about 2,000 more jobs than it had previously announced as CEO Meg Whitman tries to turn the company around.

In a regulatory filing Monday, the computer and printer maker said it will eliminate 29,000 jobs by October 2014, up from the 27,000 cuts it announced in May when HP employed about 350,000 people.

The company, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., didn't explain why it had raised the number. The revision comes amid signs that the already slumping personal computer market may weaken even further as an increasing number of sleek smartphones and tablet computers win over consumers.

The shift to mobile devices has hurt HP, the world's largest maker of PCs. HP is preparing to release a new line of tablets this fall and has been trying to diversify into more profitable lines of technology, such as business software and consulting, but Whitman has cautioned it will take several years for the company to bounce back from a litany of problems, including a lack of innovation and acquisitions that haven't panned out.

For instance, the diminished value of HP's 2008 acquisition of consulting service Electronic Data Systems saddled the company with an $8.9 billion loss in its most recent quarter.

About 8,500 workers already have accepted early retirement offers. Most of those employees left HP Aug. 31, according to Monday's filing. The rest of the early retirees will depart by the end of August 2013.

ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall estimated that HP will save an additional $200 million annually by cutting an extra 2,000 jobs. In May, the company had estimated its austerity drive would reduce its annual expenses by $3 billion to $3.5 billion.

The company expects to record charges totaling $3.7 billion to cover the costs of paying departing workers and other cost-cutting measures. That's up from the May estimate of $3.5 billion. HP absorbed $1.7 billion of the projected charges in its last fiscal quarter ending in July.

The company's stock price rose 24 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $17.53 in late afternoon trading. The shares are still close to their eight-year low of $16.77, hit Aug. 30.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Hewlett-Packard to dump 2,000 more workers
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0910/Hewlett-Packard-to-dump-2-000-more-workers
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe