Hewlett Packard to cut 5,000 more jobs globally

Cash-starved PC and printer vendor Hewlett Packard (HP) has said it will add 5,000 staff to its list of 29,000 employees identified for layoffs. The 34,000 layoffs constitute 10.24% of its total global workforce of 3,31,800.

In a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing early Tuesday (India time), HP said it expects to complete the job cuts by October.  “Due to continued market and business pressures, as of October 31, 2013, HP expects to eliminate... 34,000 positions, and to record an additional 15% of that $3.6 billion in total costs, or approximately $4.1 billion in aggregate charges,” HP said in its annual report stated. As of October 31, 2013, HP has already eliminated 24,600 positions.

Although Meg Whitman, current CEO of HP, said in August that HP’s job cuts are unlikely to impact India, the Tuesday move may have a trickle-down effect on HP’s 30,000 India employees.

However, given that India is HP’s R&D hub, Indian employees of the firm are less likely to be axed. HP’s Indian operations contributed $5.95 billion to $112.3 billion in total global revenues in the year to October 31.

Sashi Bhushan of Prabhudas Lilladher said, “Most of the layoffs will be predominantly from the hardware business and are expected to impact HP employees in China, Europe, Latin America and the US. India, being a software, services and R&D hub, should not face the brunt of these layoffs.”

Mid-tier software firm MphasiS, in which HP holds a 60% stake, said last month that revenues from  HP, which is its largest customer as well as the largest shareholder, will reduce by $100 million or Rs 610 crore this year, due to HP’s failure to bag some important renewal-based contracts.