Slashdot Mirror
Another Round of HP Layoffs
geekroot's dad writes "AP News is reporting that Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard is 'fighting to stay competitive with formidable rivals like IBM and Dell' and is announcing 5,900 European job cuts "to safeguard the future" of the company. From the article: 'Michel Destot, the Socialist deputy mayor of the southern France city of Grenoble - where HP has one of its French plants - said the layoffs were "unacceptable" and demanded that HP managers also meet local politicians to discuss scaling back the job cuts.'" This round following the first cut back in July.
Since local body is so interested in a company's staffing decision, couldn't HP threaten to lay off more employees unless it gets more tax relief?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I'll spare folks a lot of work.
"Oh, those evil French socialists! First they won't help us invade Iraq and now they are interfering with our right to lay off their lazy asses! I'm going to run down to McDonald's right now and loudly order some FREEDOM FRIES so if there's any French people eating there they will know how ANGRY I am!"
are STUPID.
HP will likely save as much in trimming those ~6k jobs as they did in getting rid of the 15k previous.
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
From the article: 'Michel Destot, the Socialist deputy mayor of the southern France city of Grenoble - where HP has one of its French plants - said the layoffs were "unacceptable" and demanded that HP managers also meet local politicians to discuss scaling back the job cuts.'"
Good luck pal. HP is a big multinational and doing business in France with French employees is a royal pain in the butt (yes, I speak from experience, having spent 14 weeks at my company's French subsidiary last year).
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Carly has only been gone all of maybe five or six months and you are complaining already? Please, give the new CEO a bit more time to undo the mess...
Jeepers... that seems high.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much reliable data available for most of the globe if this image is any guide.
The Army reading list
Or to safeguard the top management body bonuses? =D To the guys complaining of the 'red' french... well, you should study their economic and political model. It is different, it has drawbacks, it has advantages. It is not perfect, just as the US' system is not perfect either.
Disclosure: I'm stupid
I don't really see what companies like HP can do apart from streamline their business as much as possible, if they want to go down the same 'box-pushing' route as Dell. Even their printer business is being pushed hard by manufacturers such as Epson, who are willing to give up Linux and Mac compatibility just to lower prices even further.
Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
Bad Earnings for Quarter -> ...
CEO Saves Money by Cutting Sales & Engineering ->
Better Earnings ->
Bonus for CEO ->
No New Products in Queue + Reduced Sales ->
Bad Earnings for Quarter ->
CEO Saves Money by Cutting Sales & Engineering ->
rinse, lather, repeat
As a person who was a contractor at HP, I am glad to see these HP employee's get laid off. Never in my life have I dealt with such a group of arrogant and hostile to contractors group of people in my whole life. It was a company of "we're better than you, you God Damn contractors". We ran just about every support division, but those fuckers never said thank you or even acted nice toward us. It was a company of Us vs Those Contractors. They were always busting our balls and threating to have us fired or laid off. I never had a vacation because we did not have the same benefits as them but did the same work.
I would like to say to all you HP employees, karma is a bitch.
Linux O Muerte!
Wow, even Jerry Lewis never said anything that funny...
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
In every company in trouble, everytime a change in the management happens, it seems to be customary for the new CEO/Chairman to layoff bunch of people.
Ofcourse, you need to lay off a bunch of hardworking people who had nothing do with mismanagement which led to the company's present status.
Why is it done? They have to come up with cash to pay the previous moron who drowned the company & also the overpriced present CEO & other management minions.
Idiotic, you say? You've much to learn about business, silly!
If it's the employees who make a company great, how can you safeguard the company's future by firing them? How do you then achieve greatness?
I think this is more about anorectic corporate theory (i.e. keep firing people to become leaner because you never no how grim the future might be! And shareholders like it, too!) than HP having too many employees. How sad.
Oh no! The Socialist Deputy Mayor of a French city is making demands! What will we do now???
Seriously, HP sucks, we all know HP sucks, and this is yet another round of cuts in the death spiral. That said, if it were, say, Chirac ranting about HP that would be one thing. The folks at the top in a country can make things pretty difficult for you if they want - it's generally good to keep them appeased at least to some degree. But who on earth cares what some obscure Deputy Mayor thinks about anything other than the Mayor's lunch order? Why does every minor insignificant politician have to weigh in on this crap? Do they really think that their constituents believe they have influence over giant multinational corporations?
Even if this Destot fellow had some clout, HP's response would likely be "fine - how about we take all the jobs away, then... And move them to another country!"
I actually mean this - I hate pointless layoffs (and was the victim of one at a previous company), but I hate grandstanding local political hacks even more.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
"to safeguard the future" of the company
They misspelled executives, offshoring operations(aka jobstealing), and stockholders.
HP executives will not be taking any paycuts or reductions (despite poor company performance) even though many of them make many times the annual salary of any of the people being laid off.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Pah... I think it's already much too late. HP will never regain the status it had before Carly screwed it up. To talk of this is like talking about rebuilding a car that's been run into a brick wall at 50 mph. It's easier to just salvage some parts and scrap everything else.
HP still has a halfway-decent business printer division, and maybe some salvageable business units dealing with enterprise computing. Everything else needs to go.
carly trimmed lots of fat.
they gotta be cutting muscle by now, just to survive.
... hi bingo
Gone is a quality product from a company which cares about making quality products. Gone is the HP that cared more about hiring good engineering people than about quarterly projections.
Everone welcome in the HP that cares about shipping commodity product (read: crap) to customers whose success only matters in so much as they buy next season's overpriced plastic crap.
Welcome in the HP which lies to long term corporate customer about product lines (not online: pick up Sept. 5th ComputerWorld and read Don Tennant's column and the reader reaction).
Since the merger it's like HP sucked all the Suck out of Compaq's sucky products and injected it into HP products. Everyone thought the merger was a question of customer bases but clearly HP bought Compaq for the Suck alone.
HP: now with extra suckiness!
Me, what, rant? never,
-- RLJ
as wrongly captioned.
Should be "Countries with unemployment lying between 5 and 10%" The UK for example would be around the 4% mark, I feel that Norway *might* be in a similar position. Hence their anomalous colouration.
As for the rest, the former Soviet states are probably running under the old pretence of 100% employment and for the semi-industrialised Third World, the definition of employment is probably meaningless.
Full employment is a conceit of the G8 and their wannabee hangers on.
As for the article, French labour laws mean that Local Government DOES have a say in how a company (even HP) treats its employees. Seeing as HP probably took "Development Grants" to set up there, they're probably pulling out because the grants ran out. If HP management have the same blinkered attitude and limited knowledge of Europe as most Slashdotters do, they probably failed to notify the right organisations enough in advance before making their announcement. This would explain why the Frogs are huffing and puffing.
You probably dont know of the recent history of the company from which he left. Search for "NCR Corp" "Healthcare" "cuts". That should give you a starting point on what they've recently become, and what you might see from Hurd.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
That does it!! I'm boycotting HP from now on! My future PC purchases will be from Compaq! That will show them!
I will also be boycotting Mercury in favor of Ford, Tru-Green in favor of Chemlawn, and finally I will only drink Budweizer! Busch will no longer get my business.
If everyone would follow, corporate America would see who they are dealing with!
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
For the Americans who complain of the french 35 hour work week, and use it to explain the demise of the french economy and a host of associated profanities, I'd like to point out that Americans only do about 35 hours of work a week anyway.
Job surveys are pretty consistent: Americans waste at least an hour a day at work consciously fucking around on the internet, paying bills, etc.
So. Really, 5 hours is not that much time. The bigger problem is that all of Europe has high unemployment. It's a trade-off: less employment, lower inflation, higher benefits for their old, their sick, their poor. You're telling me you wouldn't pass up a bit of job security for full and free health care? It's not like us americans have job security anyway.
Besides, the ECB is committed to a wicked-low inflation target and that only means 1 thing: higher unemployment.
A system that has 5% unemployment vs. 10% or higher is more compassionate, is it not? How can you be compassionate if you can't compete? You end up with less ability to help the poor.
Yeah, I pay taxes that are pretty high, but I don't have to pay for health care at all
I've found that nothing in this life is truly free. A friend of mine has a mother that lives in Norway. She's on a 6-month waiting list for a necessary operation.
Sure, she doesn't have to pay for it. She just has to suffer with traumatic pain while she waits her turn.
"What do you get for YOUR taxes in the states?" I had to agree
Do you not use roads? Do you not use public transportation (which is subsidized by taxes)? Do you not use public water, public sewer, etc? Have you never called the police? I could go on forever. Your taxes are lower than the Europeans' taxes, and just because you don't get "free" healthcare doesn't mean you don't use governmental services. You use them every day.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Considering overall unemployment rates and economic performance as a whole, it sounds like the U.S. system wins out. Companies are very reluctant to hire people if it is overly difficult to fire them.
A bit less stress is good for your health too, you know.
Why is it that after we've invented all these wonderful robots and computers and whatnot to supposedly make one's life easier we have to work and work and work harder and harder.
Where does it end? What for?
Face it, most US corporations treat employees and stockholders like serfs. Everything for upper management and to hell with everyone else. The sale of a couple of GulfStreams could keep thousands on the payroll.
see
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11542
And before people start yelling about Europe's high unemployment I would like to point out:
1) US unemployment rates only count actively registered unemployed. Once the unemployment runs out most people don't bother showing up to register anymore. In Europe they have 'the dole' for which you get paid to show up and so they record larger numbers of unemployed. In the US the official numbers are skewed.
2) Oh, and while on the dole you still get some minimum of health care.
3) Oh, and there are 1.9 million US citizens in prison in the US who are not counted as unemployed. Contrast that to China with about 1.4 million in prison (see this pdf for an eye opener http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r188.pdf a report developed by the UK government no less!). Did I mention China has about 3 times the US populations AND is a Communist regiem?
What they need to do is get rid of some overpriced C*Os and sell a couple of airplanes.
I hope the French stick it to them.
(no, no rant here, move along, nothing to see... )
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The American system has higher "performance", but which system has the greater compassion? You make the call.
Today, or 100 years from today? America's system has allowed 4% growth in real purchasing power per year since WWII. Europe's has allowed 2% growth. This means the the part of "standard of living" that's determined by what stuff you can afford in America doubles relavite to Europe every 35 years or so. Let's say the extra job security in Europe doubles your standard of living. OK, your ahead for 35 years and behind forever after.
Productivity and technology together make more difference in your standard of living than you might imagine, because it accumulates over the generations. It is more compassionate to be secure in your job, if it means you don't have the medical technology to save your child's life, as your system delayed the technology for most vaccines by 100 years?
It's not as cut-and-dry as you make it out to be. Higher productivity really does drive useful technology faster.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This article http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/050912/1163171.html?.v=1 clarifies that these 5900 European job cuts are part of the 14,500 worldwide job cuts announced in July.
This is why prospective politicians should not be allowed to run until they have passed a basic course on economics.
And science. Maybe a little history. Art appreciation doesn't hurt.
.. and my heart warms for HP. I can't help it, it's limbic.
I agree the employment numbers are cooked. But your figure is worse. Your figure assumes everyone wants to work. In other words, it includes stay at home mothers as a "deficit" in working people, when they are not.
Heck, it probably also includes the independently wealthy who definitely don't wish to work, don't need to, and are supported by their own income.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
evil leftist just show how dumb slashdoters are. Geeks like technology.
See what I mean? :)
feh. stuff.
Once HP's layoff are finally finished, then only the very best forard-looking, productive, gung-ho employees will remain.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
It will be even more unacceptable when HP tells that mayor where he can stick it and pulls the rest of the jobs from the city (which given hp's current state of affairs was bound to happen anyway).
My neighbor, on the other hand, came here from Mexico 15 years ago on a green card. Didn't have anything except the willingness to bust his butt and a good head on his shoulders. Worked scut work for 5 years in a bakery saving every cent he earned all the while learning how to be a baker. After 5 years, he started out on his own and opened a bakery. He's got seven of them now, and he works one day at each one each day of the week. Public schools around here aren't worth much so he's sent his two kids to a Catholic private high school. Each of them has their own car.
About once a month, I eat at a Chinese hole in the wall. Food is outstanding and there's always a line for takeout as there are barely any seats in the restaurant as most of the floorspace is kitchen. There are 6 people working in a space the size of two cubicles exchanging instructions in Chinese. Haute cuisine it ain't but the food is damn good. They open at 10 am and are there until 10 pm. They're making a go of what you would take to be slim prospects.
My gardener wasn't quite as successful. He still rents, but he's provided for his family which he said there was no way he could of done in Guatamala.
My best friend is a plumber. No college but is a partner in a plumbing business. He's smart, worked his tail off, and got to the point that he is billing quarter million dollar jobs in Pebble Beach. He plumbed Clint Eastwood's house and used a tie down he invented to keep floor heating pipes in place. The tie-down saved him 7 cents/tiedown over a commercial product, and is faster to install to boot. It may not sound like much of a savings but it's enabled him to shave his cost on each floor heating job he's bid. He never knew his dad and is mother was an alcholic who didn't provide much for him and yet he's thrived. All that on a high school education.
One of my top student's father was pulled out of middle school during the cultural revolution. Wasted years of his life on a farm just staying alive. When he got the chance, he left China and came here. His wife works in a local hospital and he's holding down a day job while taking care of some pre-reqs before going to med school. He gets about 5 hours of sleep each night even though he's in his mid 40's. Even still, he's happy to be here.
I don't think any of these folk would agree with your assessment of economic prospects in this country.
America's level of borrowing is running at a higher level than of some countries it has forced to restructure their own economies (Argentina), the economy overall is seeing a reduction in employment, people have less disposable income and the jobs being created within the economy are of a lower standard than those being lost.
Japan can't sort out problems in its backyard: they had the size of their military capped for 50 years. Terms of their surrender after the second world war.
The American economies strength is largely dependent on exporting items, and I do remember an article in which American economists blamed Europe for their economic woes as we were unwilling to get ourselves into enough personal debt buying American goods.
You are aware that the occupation of Iraq and the preceeding war were in violation of international law, aren't you?
And, despite this, you still had a coalition of allies helping you there and still do.
American interests are not the world's best interests and, increasingly, tend to run contrary to them.
I think you need a more realistic perspective before you rant like that.
For a start, I challenge your assumption about "most successful people". It's well-documented that working long hours for extended periods provides rapidly diminishing returns, and ultimately becomes counter-productive as the damage caused by mistakes made while tired takes longer to undo later on.
About 35-40 hours is the most productive sustained hourly rate, and it's remarkably consistent across different industries and workers. You can get additional returns up to about 60 hours in short bursts, though they become less the higher the hours get. By about 80 hours, you're back to being only as productive as you were in the first 40 again as they additional 40 have cancelled out.
Go ahead and Google for this, or just try this article for a fairly representative comment. There are plenty of scientifically conducted studies, right back to Ford's observations about the guys building cars in his factory. The five-day working week came about in much the same way, BTW.
Next up, perhaps Mr Seventy Hours will be lazy rich in his 50s and living over there with a big house and car. The difference between us is that I will have lived for 50 years already when I get to my 50th birthday, and I won't die young from burn out.
Perhaps, but I'll take working smarter over working harder any day, and I bet I get there as fast as the butt-buster.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
About ten years ago I got a contract 'temp' position at HP (Vancouver, WA, USA) to disassemble printers. My job was to open brand-new printers in packages and take them apart down to the metal chassis. The chassis was used to make prototypes for new models.
There was no chance of my being hired, but I had to go to three interviews and take a drug test. And the 'job' was at the factory where the printers were assembled from the metal chassis in the first place. But there was no way that they could get the metal chassis from the assembly line before it was assembled, so the printers had to be completely disassembled after being completely assembled and packaged for sale.
I'm assigned to a storage room with a million dollars worth of printers and truck loading port. I'm getting $9 an hour and was given the key to the warehouse with a lot of resellable product. But I passed the marijuana piss test, so according to H-P I'm 100% reliable and trustworthy.
There's another temp working there also, way in the back. He'd been a temp for three years already as noone ever gets hired at H-P. No one who actually works there, at least. I saw the 'boss' once for 10 minutes on the first day. He welcomed me to the 'team', gave me the key to warehouse, pointed to the stack of brand-new printers to be torn apart, and showed me where the dumpster was. All of the brand-new parts except the metal chassis were to be just tossed into the garbage.
Two months later, the day before Christmas, I get fired for:
(1) 'stealing the brand-new floppy disks.' I took them home and reused them instead of throwing them away.
(2) 'allowing the disemination of confidential H-P information.' This referred to the text files of the printer manual found on the floppy disks. The files that went with every printer sold. Any floppy in an H-P dumpster was assumed by H-P to be holding confidential information. Then why is in the dumpster, guys?
(3) 'contributing to the creation of an environment conductive to sexual harassment.' I was lonely spending all day all alone in the warehouse tearing apart printers. I put a GIF file of Claudia Schiffer (a head shot of Ms. Schiffer in a evening dress, no porn) on the PC as Windows wallpaper. It was ten years ago and at that time having photos acting as Windows wallpaper was considered very unusual and special.
Now I'm sure your corporate lawyer would give you what passes for good reasons as to why I had to be fired. But in the real world, it was all bullshit. I've never trusted H-P since then. I've never again believed any press release or 'independent' article in the press about how advanced of a company that they are.
And I was certainly not surprised when Hurricane Carly came through and wiped out the place and then left with many millions of dollars in go-away money. Hewlett-Packard was FUBAR long before Carly.
That's just the federal debt, which is a real issue, but when you count all debt like credit cards, housing, other bonds, etc
The government does not count people if they are past the time for receiving unemployment checks. they become non persons and are not counted
Won't this myth die once and for all?
The government does not calculate the unemployment rate on how many people are collecting unemployment checks. Get that straight. Collecting unemployment HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CALCULATING THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE.
The unemployment rate is determined by a survey of about 60,000 people.
I know I sound like a gold kook. But, truthfully I would really rather have my money in google or red hat stocks, but not with the way things are now ( and their P/E's). The truth is, gold doesn't do anything but sit there, but gold has one thing going for it that nothing else has, it can't be printed out of thin air, crash to nothing, or default.
A housing bubble is a lot different than a stock bubble. With stocks you typically don't own debt, and stocks remain liquid even when they drop huge amounts. But when housing crashes, it will bring down everything else with it, even banks, unless the fed prints up money - that's what I mean about gold.
In my opinion the economy is not doing well, but is being held up by loose money and easy home financing. Now the stock market has been betting on that loose money using derivatives, and consumers have been betting on that loose money by going outrageously into debt for housing. The notational value of derivatives is 270 trillion dollars while the GDP is only about 13 trillion. This is making the margin calls of 1929 look like tight wads, but at least money was backed by gold then. And it's making the inflation of the 80's look like a 50% off sale, but at least the US could absorb a lot more debt then. There is no easy way out this time.