HP Makes More Money, Cuts 16,000 Jobs
jfruh (300774) writes "Good news for HP: Profits are up by 18% over the previous year! Bad news for HP: A lot of those profits are from post-Windows XP PC upgrades, and company revenue actually dipped 1%. The solution, according to CEO Meg Whitman, is "continuous improvement in our cost structure," which means firing thousands of people. At the end of the next round of layoffs, the company will have shed 50,000 employees since 2012."
New submitter Deveauxes (3664417) links to a similar story from CNN's news service, according to which "HP said the latest layoffs would come across all its business units and geographic locations, and would generate $1 billion in annual savings beyond the $3.5 to $4 billion projected from the previously announced cuts. 'No company likes to decrease the work force, and we recognize that this is difficult for employees,' CEO Meg Whitman said in a conference call with analysts. 'I think everyone understands the turnaround we're in.'"
I thought that they still relocating entire offices to third world countries, and staffing them with people making $3 an hour to do your tech support calls. You can't get H1B's for that cheap!
What... you still want tech support that can actually understand English and isn't just navigating through a troubleshooting flow chart to "fix" your problem? You better pony up for the Gold level Enterprise support package for $$$$$$ a month.
She might save HP, actually.
But she could devastate the local economy and thousands of families to increase the already profitable company's margin even more for the rich shareholders.
But hey, there is a silver lining - at least she only fucking over 16,000 HP employees and not 1M+ California employees as governor...
Wasn't HP the one that, not long ago, hired and fired about 5 CEO's in the course of 7 years. Paying each a 8 figure severance package on their way out?
Where do you get that? Wikipedia says 262,569 Initial+Renewals+Extensions in 2012, which would make 20K off by a factor of 13.
Sure, but that includes the elderly and children and people who dont' work, and people who work in areas not eligible for H1Bs. There are, and this is a hotly debated number, perhaps 2.4M STEM related jobs (of which HP itself only employs a cross-section of) and of that under 10% are open. There are over 11 million STEM degreed americans out there who have given up on STEM, probably due to dropping salaries and incessant layoffs.
Anyway hopefully as HP lays off STEM job holders, the H1B count can be lowered by that number (some large fraction of 16K jobs). Of course that won't happen because salaries might go up.
Almost right. Actually, it's upper management who gets wealthy in the name of "shareholder wealth". But yeah, too bad about the rest of the economy.
Just in case other people notice, the SSL certificate for the Slashdot login page expired today.
As for the English speaking, all you have to do is explain to them that you have a hearing problem and need to speak with someone who is accent free in English. They will bend over backwards to get you to a native English speaker (quasi Americans with disabilities act and all).
Now the downside to this is more time on hold. The upside- beside understanding what they are saying- is that the native English speaker will likely by a higher level tech who can go outside the chart without delving into "please insert the restore CD into the computer" or at least be able to warn about backups first. but there is no guarantee. Well, I guess now there is no restore CD, press key combination and select restore?