HP Plans To Cut Another 25,000 To 30,000 Jobs

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HP is planning to cut as many as 30,000 more jobs to make the company "more competitive?" How about hiring a CEO that can make you more competitive without cutting jobs?

"These restructuring activities will enable a more competitive, sustainable cost structure for the new Hewlett Packard Enterprise," HP CEO Meg Whitman said in a statement. "We've done a significant amount of work over the past few years to take costs out and simplify processes, and these final actions will eliminate the need for any future corporate restructuring."
 
Leo Apotheker fucked that company royally and every CEO since has just tried to squeeze more money for themselves out of it.
 
Ok, seriously how does cutting 30k jobs keep you competitive? What were those jobs doing? I could understand a few thousand at most, but tens of thousands and they are expecting to be better at what they do?
 
I took it as nearly entire groups would be let go. The few cloud and security folks left behind may wish they weren't still there. Boy have things changed. When I started out HP was in a select few companies only the best people could get into. I doubt the best people even have them on the list anymore.
 
That company has been creating a culture with a lack of ambition, low performance and zero accountability since well before Apotheker.

I work with them often, as well as their competitors. Most the competition is fast, agile, competitive and aggressive. Some of them are arrogant assholes. You need all that in tech.

HP is like the federal government, huge, slow and worthless. I don't know how you fix it, but I suspect over 50% of their employees are part of the problem. They all sit around, get paid, do nothing and constantly fuck up without any accountability.
 
mtrupi said:
I took it as nearly entire groups would be let go. The few cloud and security folks left behind may wish they weren't still there. Boy have things changed. When I started out HP was in a select few companies only the best people could get into. I doubt the best people even have them on the list anymore.
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Exactly, the few good people they have go out of their god damned mind and leave. Only the incompetent people who know they'll get paid for doing nothing stick it out.
 
mecra said:
Ok, seriously how does cutting 30k jobs keep you competitive? What were those jobs doing? I could understand a few thousand at most, but tens of thousands and they are expecting to be better at what they do?
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HP has over 300,000 employees so there appears some room to cut ... the article didn't give details on the cuts but with HP splitting into two companies there is probably some fat they can trim ... also, some markets are not performing up to expectations for lots of companies so they could be doing some regional reductions (reducing footprint in South America, Europe, etc) ... I can't speak to if these are the right cuts but cutting jobs can definitely help a company compete (if they are the right jobs)
 
Taco said:
That company has been creating a culture with a lack of ambition, low performance and zero accountability since well before Apotheker.

I work with them often, as well as their competitors. Most the competition is fast, agile, competitive and aggressive. Some of them are arrogant assholes. You need all that in tech.

HP is like the federal government, huge, slow and worthless. I don't know how you fix it, but I suspect over 50% of their employees are part of the problem. They all sit around, get paid, do nothing and constantly fuck up without any accountability.
Click to expand...

So its not just the company that I work for that has this issue with HP. Good to know.
 
mecra said:
Ok, seriously how does cutting 30k jobs keep you competitive? What were those jobs doing? I could understand a few thousand at most, but tens of thousands and they are expecting to be better at what they do?
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I was part of the previous round of cuts at HP. I got shipped off to a staffing company doing the same job for 50% less money and no benefits. Have since moved on, along with 90% of my team which was very big. The people that replaced us eventually make under 14$/hr in an enterprise IT role. The talent level has dropped dramatically and the next round of contract negotiations are going to go horribly for HP. I honestly don't see how they survive 5-6 years.
 
kbrickley said:
HP has over 300,000 employees so there appears some room to cut ... the article didn't give details on the cuts but with HP splitting into two companies there is probably some fat they can trim ... also, some markets are not performing up to expectations for lots of companies so they could be doing some regional reductions (reducing footprint in South America, Europe, etc) ... I can't speak to if these are the right cuts but cutting jobs can definitely help a company compete (if they are the right jobs)
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There is nothing left to cut. The talent that hasn't been let go is leaving on their own. People that stay have zero job security, zero chance for raises/promotions, with all of the unfilled positions peoples workloads are insane, i could go on and on.
 
Steve said:
How about hiring a CEO that can make you more competitive without cutting jobs?
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That's not usually the way it works. :p

Just because you have people doesn't mean you have the RIGHT people, or the right QUANTITY of people for the task your company is working towards.

It's not the purpose of business to create (or maintain) jobs. The purpose of business is to make money for their shareholders. This - apart from obeying the law - is the ONLY thing that matters to just about any business.

The employees are just tools to accomplish this purpose. Expensive, living and breathing tools.

If you need a different tools than the ones you have, you get rid of the ones you have, and replace them with others.

If you used to have big projects that needed LOTS of tools, and now you don't any more and they are just collecting dust on shelves, you get rid of those tools.

There has been a lot of talk about the death of the PC, the rise of the tablet, and now - in some cases - the fall of the tablet. All of these are probably exaggerated or false, but it DOES highlight that the industry that HP is in (or at least the part of their business that is consumer devices) is a volatile and changing one, and when your industry changes, you have to change your business to meet the new demands.

This usually means cutting some jobs, and moving out of some areas, and hiring some people and moving into others.

Businesses are not charities. Keeping people employed isn't, and shouldn't be their concern.
 
AndrewK78 said:
I was part of the previous round of cuts at HP. I got shipped off to a staffing company doing the same job for 50% less money and no benefits. Have since moved on, along with 90% of my team which was very big. The people that replaced us eventually make under 14$/hr in an enterprise IT role. The talent level has dropped dramatically and the next round of contract negotiations are going to go horribly for HP. I honestly don't see how they survive 5-6 years.
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Yeah you let go of 30K people, backfill half their positions with H1Bs and newbies after a while and the shareholders love it.
It looks good on paper then the companies years later realize they are not able to get stuff done.

Look at what Disney did, MANY companies are doing this.

And it will only get worse. Pretty soon you will be lucky getting a job putting together iPhones for our Arab and Chinese overlords.
 
HP spent the last 10 years digging their own grave with cheap, uncompetitive crap.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
Yeah you let go of 30K people, backfill half their positions with H1Bs and newbies after a while and the shareholders love it.
It looks good on paper then the companies years later realize they are not able to get stuff done.

Look at what Disney did, MANY companies are doing this.

And it will only get worse. Pretty soon you will be lucky getting a job putting together iPhones for our Arab and Chinese overlords.
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There was another team that got the ax before mine did. Upgraded the network with the new team that had just come on board. Six month project was still a absolute disaster 18 months later when I left.
 
GilmourD said:
Leo Apotheker fucked that company royally and every CEO since has just tried to squeeze more money for themselves out of it.
Click to expand...

Fiorina was the downfall of HP.

Mark Hurd had HP doing good things until his scandal. It's unfortunate that we won't get to see what the potential was for HP now that he's gone.
 
Going to root for Carly tonight oh wait maybe not.....the printer business was bound to fall to cloud storage and USB drive and expensive ink jet cartridges.
 
They should of jumped on 3-D printing but that is a totally different operation
 
aVaLaNcHe said:
Fiorina was the downfall of HP.

Mark Hurd had HP doing good things until his scandal. It's unfortunate that we won't get to see what the potential was for HP now that he's gone.
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Most of these cuts are coming from HP Enterprise Services aka EDS a company bought under Hurd.

Market moved onto the cloud(AWS, etc) while HP did not keep up. dont really see what else they can do.
 
Considering the mess that is HP-UX, this doesn't surprise me much. They need to fire the demons in their software development divisions.
 
HP used to be a great company but has long since lost its original vision.

Now it is a company by and for top level management to make management and shareholders money. Nothing else matters.

As for Fiorina, she once claimed that Americans should be willing to work for less than minimum wage. Another out of touch (or feeling threatened) 1%'er.
 
Not just top level management. You have sales reps making 750k-1mil+. Sales engineers making a couple hundred grand. And they all just go through the motions, slog through their jobs while their competition is eating their lunch.

I have to imagine a large part of these layoffs will be sales.

HP Enterprise products are not that bad. Servers and storage are all quality (though it's time they flesh out their storage, 3PAR can't carry the load across all fronts). They just have morons in marketing and unmotivated lazy sloths in sales(including sales engineers).

Cisco and EMC on the other hand are the opposite of that.

We can talk about their customer facing post sales engineers and architects all you want. They are all easily interchangeable(sorry guys) and do not impact business as long as there isn't a single mass exodus. It's the business side of things that needs to be firebombed and rebuilt with some arrogant aggressive asshole EMC alum leading the charge.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041859327 said:
You do realize that to make shareholders money is the one and only reason any company exists, right? :rolleyes:
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In a way there is no such thing as a tech company or a video card company or a auto company.

They are all money making companies. That's why they do anything at all. Return on investment.

They would rop whatever it is they are doing and sell ice cream instead tomorrow, if that meant they would get greater profits.

Any company has fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. This is a legal responsibility to operate in the best interests of the shareholders investments, above all else.
 
Yeah, Carly bailed out Capellas from his shitshow at Compaq for $19 Billion, and probably lost HP over 10 Billion of that:

http://fortune.com/2011/08/21/why-carlys-big-bet-is-failing-fortune-classics-2005/

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1019181/when-hp-bought-compaq-crock

And then Hurd's panicky purchase of EDS. Lost them 8 Billion!

http://www.webosnation.com/hps-8-billion-loss-eds-purchase-makes-webos-look-drop-bucket

And the best part is: these people knew they were buying shit, and paid the money ANYWAY!

http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-hurd-eds-2012-8
 
aVaLaNcHe said:
Fiorina was the downfall of HP.

Mark Hurd had HP doing good things until his scandal. It's unfortunate that we won't get to see what the potential was for HP now that he's gone.
Click to expand...

Carly cut costs by outsourcing jobs to any 4th world country she could find. All CEOs that followed simply refined the process to outsource more and faster.

Cutting 30,000 jobs doesn't mean the work is gone. It just means that the work will be done by some outsource company. It is the HP Way!

Mark Hurd's way to cut costs was by doing away with R&D. A computer company with no R&D is insane! That was Hurd's dream (well with the scandal, he may have had other dreams!)
 
Zarathustra[H];1041859346 said:
In a way there is no such thing as a tech company or a video card company or a auto company.

They are all money making companies. That's why they do anything at all. Return on investment.

They would rop whatever it is they are doing and sell ice cream instead tomorrow, if that meant they would get greater profits.

Any company has fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. This is a legal responsibility to operate in the best interests of the shareholders investments, above all else.
Click to expand...
You're mixing up "any company" with "any publicly-traded corporation." Private companies have none of these obligations. They can fund and operate however they want, they only need to stay profitable to survive. Valve is a pretty obvious example. Most people there just work on whatever project they feel like, regardless of profitability, with no boss. That mentality sure wouldn't fly with most shareholders, but since it doesn't have them, it's a non-issue.

Even with public corporations, the focus has shifted over the years. There was more semblance of balance at most companies half a century ago. The "shareholders above everything" mentality is more recent. Here's a longer explanation on it.
 
HP is attempting to maximize the shareholders profits (1%ers) at the expense of the working man. Cold.
 
mecra said:
Ok, seriously how does cutting 30k jobs keep you competitive? What were those jobs doing? I could understand a few thousand at most, but tens of thousands and they are expecting to be better at what they do?
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India, mainly. They believe the answer to all their woes is dirt cheap labor and automation. Currently the automation side of things doesn't work for shit, mainly because they "bestshored" the folks who support their main automation tool (Opsware)

I've yet to find anything they've off-shored, that didn't immediately turn into a total shit show, so I've got to believe middle management is lying to the higher ups and telling them what they want to hear. That, or Meg just wants to make some fast money on her bonuses before the whole thing implodes.

HP promises ES will deliver 7% to 9% profit margins. Much of that comes from eliminating workers in high-cost-of-living parts of the world like US, Canada, and Europe. In 2013 36% of ES workers were in low-cost offshore locations. By 2018, 60% of them will be low-cost offshore locations. The company is currently at 40%, Nefkens said.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-hp-plans-to-save-enterprise-services-2015-9
 
AndrewK78 said:
There is nothing left to cut. The talent that hasn't been let go is leaving on their own. People that stay have zero job security, zero chance for raises/promotions, with all of the unfilled positions peoples workloads are insane, i could go on and on.
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Odd, that sounds vaguely familiar. It's like being on a bad reality show, hoping you're not the next one to get voted off the island. I'd say 80% of the people I started with have been let go over the years. I'm still here, mainly for the story. Living indoors is also nice.
 
Monk0101 said:
Carly cut costs by outsourcing jobs to any 4th world country she could find. All CEOs that followed simply refined the process to outsource more and faster.

Cutting 30,000 jobs doesn't mean the work is gone. It just means that the work will be done by some outsource company. It is the HP Way!

Mark Hurd's way to cut costs was by doing away with R&D. A computer company with no R&D is insane! That was Hurd's dream (well with the scandal, he may have had other dreams!)
Click to expand...

It sure was an interesting parade of bullshit...CEO after CEO after CEO while going in to work every day and reading the internal newsletters, huh Mr G?
 
I worked there for 5 years (in enterprise services) started as a contractor proved my worth was offered a full time position and not 2 years after was technically fired (HP would call it transitioned) back to contract. I lost about 30% in total compensation including my health benefits for me and my family, kick in the dick I was 3 months shy of being vested in my 401k match and all that money is long gone too. Best of all they expected me to continue with the same output while working on what I'll call a "client saving" project. Basically we needed to pull this project off to keep a big client. So that along with many other reasons I GTFO. The major issue with that company is the management. Most are clueless just sucking on the tit waiting to retire meanwhile you have horrendous employees getting away with murder, not doing shit, never available and the select few who actually do their f'n job stuck with everything.

Mark my words once the company splits the goal will be to sell / merge it with someone else after the 2 yr grace has passed. Assuming it'll float that long before all their customers fly the coop.
 
celeron300 said:
HP is attempting to maximize the shareholders profits (1%ers) at the expense of the working man. Cold.
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Not really, when you think of it this way:

HP is owned by its shareholders.

So HP IS it's Shareholders.

Shareholders buy HP stocks so that they can make a profit, and that is the direction that they give to their management teams.

If HP's shareholders don't get the return on investment they expect, they fire the board of directors. If the board of directors don't get what they expect from the CEO (to keep the shareholders happy) they fire the CEO.

Everyone in the organization should be aligned to the desires of the shareholders, or they shouldn't be working there.

The shareholders don't care about the employees. They are just a resource used to make their investment turn a profit.

So, It's not like there is some new change that switches the priority from the workers to the shareholders. The workers never have been a priority. They have never been more than a resource. If they can be replaced by a machine, that costs less? Do it in a heartbeat.

HP is the shareholders, and the shareholders (like all people) are self serving in their investments.

It is the reason a publicly traded company exists. A company is a method to turn some money into more money for its owners.

And this isn't only a 1% thing. It is true, there are many wealthy shareholders, but there are also a lot of investors that are institutional (like state/company or Union retirement plans) or people saving for retirement in their 401k's or non-profit universities investing their endowments so they can continue to operate and provide scholarships to students, etc. etc.

tetris42 said:
You're mixing up "any company" with "any publicly-traded corporation." Private companies have none of these obligations. They can fund and operate however they want, they only need to stay profitable to survive. Valve is a pretty obvious example. Most people there just work on whatever project they feel like, regardless of profitability, with no boss. That mentality sure wouldn't fly with most shareholders, but since it doesn't have them, it's a non-issue.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, there are some exceptions, but even in most privately held companies the reason the owners own the companies is to turn a profit.

tetris42 said:
Even with public corporations, the focus has shifted over the years. There was more semblance of balance at most companies half a century ago. The "shareholders above everything" mentality is more recent. Here's a longer explanation on it.
Click to expand...

That linked article is positively eye rolling.

Of course there are no statutes that enforce shareholder value.

A publicly traded company does what its shareholders want, because they are the owners. The company belongs to them. If they want to turn a profit, that's what the company tries to do.

If they want the company to waste money, that's what it will do to, but I have yet to meet a shareholder for whom that is their purpose of investing.

I don't think anyone could argue with a fact that the people who own a company should set its direction and goals, and when shareholders demand return on investment, that is what they are doing with the company they own.

You do have a point though. The process of having shareholders puts some distance between owner and the company as a whole. If people are buying a share to hold it for a week and then sell it, etc, they are never going to be as invested (no pun intended) in the company as a private owner who started the company, and has an emotional investment in it. A person like that is likely going to make more compromises between profit and care of his company and employees. He is still likely in it for the money, but is also more likely to compromise when he sees the human cost of some of the demands for ROI.

A shareholder on the other hand is ruthless. They don't have that bond tot he company. To them it's a line on a chart, and that line had better go up at the rate they expect it to, or someone will pay. And who can blame them? After all they own it.
 
Yes, HP wants/needs to provide good results to their shareholders. Whether it is the 1% types or not I won't argue. However, I know a lot of employees who hold a lot of HP stock in their 401k. These folks sure are not the 1% types.

As far as getting rid of 25,000 to 30,000 employees, that is mostly smoke and mirrors. Actually, with the split into two companies, they will need to add jobs. For example, where you now have a team purchasing components for both Enterprise and Computer/printer groups, after the split you will need two teams (one for Enterprise and one for the Computer/printer companies). Continue this example in every department where teams are at the corporate level and not at the product level.

However, the way around this is outsourcing. If you layoff employees and then hire an outside company to do the work previously done by the employees (hopefully but probably really not at a lower cost). On paper, you have reduced head count. The company has in fact reduced the number of employees on it's payroll. That makes it look like good management and more efficient. This may work for a while, but sooner or later the costs catch up. The outsourcing company needs to make a profit also, and they now have greater payroll and benefits, etc to pay. The outsourcing company has shareholders to keep happy also. So basically, all you are doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!
 
GilmourD said:
Leo Apotheker fucked that company royally and every CEO since has just tried to squeeze more money for themselves out of it.
Click to expand...
Fiorina.jpeg
 
GilmourD said:
Leo Apotheker fucked that company royally and every CEO since has just tried to squeeze more money for themselves out of it.
Click to expand...

Just to set the record straight. There has been only one CEO after Apotheker. That one was Meg Whitman.

The order is:
Carly Fiorina
Mark Hurd
Leo Apotheker
Meg Whitman
 
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