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HP Plans To Cut Up To 4,000 Jobs Over Next 3 Years Amid PC Slump (bloomberg.com)
Yesterday, it was reported that the PC industry is on a two-year downslide as PC shipments have declined for eight consecution quarters. Today, HP announced it will cut between 3,000 and 4,000 jobs over the next three years due to the PC slump. Bloomberg reports: The company will eliminate positions across the board, Chief Executive Officer Dion Weisler said on Thursday. The comments came as HP held its analyst meeting in New York. The reductions could include 1,000 jobs being outsourced if the number of positions edges close to 4,000, Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak said. Weisler is searching for additional ways to drive profitability after his PC company gained independence last year from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which sells corporate tech gear. Earlier this year, Weisler said HP would need to accelerate a plan announced in 2015 to eliminate about 3,000 positions over three years. Instead, those reductions are to be completed this fiscal year. HP has about 50,000 employees now. HP said the newest job cuts will generate cost savings of about $200 million to $300 million annually starting in fiscal 2020. The Palo Alto, California-based computer maker expects to take $350 million to $500 million in charges in connection with the plan, and of that tool about $200 million will be labor costs, according to a regulatory filing.
This is the consequence of the death of Moores Law. A lot of people won't be happy to hear this, but Moores Law is dead and won't be coming back. Digital computers are reaching an endpoint and there are no more leaps to be made technologically here. Essentially digitial computing is hitting a dead end. The computer you have today will look a lot like the one you will have 10 years from know. I know people will go on about 3D microchips, atomic transistors, exotic materials, but that isn't going to bring back Moores Law. We have been spoiled for decades, but the party is over.
Nonsense. USA economy is the best ever. Clinton had a great economy and Obama has lowest unemployment. Where is all this nonsensical propaganda about losing jobs coming from? Next thing you know there will be a story about losing high paying full time jobs and showing reduction in unemployment due to the former full time people getting multiple low paying part time jobs.
Next thing you know there will be a story about Clinton refinancing long term, fixed rate USA debt in short term, variable rate bills. Next thing you know there will be a story about the Federal reserve creating tons of money to buy bad long term USA debt, to buy failing assets, to backstop failing crony businesses. Next thing you know there will be a story about USA being actually a bankrupt nation that couldn't pay pensions or Medicare or war bills without constantly getting into more and more debt.
Next thing you know there will be a story about the coming bond and USD collapse. Next thing you know there will be a story about the destruction of actual capitalism (savings and business formation based on a stable political and economic environment) in the States. Next thing you know there will be a story here about the rest of the world repeating these idiotic USA policies of pushing up inflation by printing money and by destroying the value of savings through interest rate manipulation.
Next thing you know there will be a story here about the need of the individuals to be free from the political and economic oppression by the collectivists governments around the world.
Next thing you know there will be a story here about how the income and death and various property taxes are destroying long term economic planning by preventing families from continuing in the same business through generations. How the State uses inheritance taxes to destroy sound economic decisions and promotes short term thinking through public corporations that are not ran by its owners but by the board of directors who may or may not in fact think in terms of generations but only think in terms of a few years (if that).
No, wait, there won't be stories here like that, here there are only stories about 'horrible' businesses that are cutting jobs for 'no reason' while their CEOs are obviously making tons of money by increasing long term value through programs like stock buy backs. Not that buying back your own stock doesn't make sense in the environment where money is nearly free of value while the stock itself may actually be a sound inflation hedge.
You can't handle the truth.
Note that "across the board" does not refer to the board of directors.
I can't call them "layoffs" because that term is reserved for employees who are welcomed back at some point. Meg and her cronies also drastically reduced HPE's contribution toward benefits, particularly for the NewCorp spinoff people - meanwhile, the plans offered have become more expensive as well, with prescription copays as much as $50 for 30 day supplies. It's effectively a huge pay cut. They are daring the remaining employees to quit, by bringing morale to an all-time low with employee-hostile policies.
Meg actually had the nerve to cheerfully tell the people watching/attending an all-employee town hall how great it was that they were moving so many jobs from high cost countries (i.e. US, Canada and Europe) to low cost countries. Sociopath much?
that these fucks cancelled by interview. Imagine if I ended up working for HP after graduation!
World’s Smallest Transistor Is Just One Nanometer Long And Is Not Made Of Silicon
When this is ready for mass production, we're about to see a boom in computing that will make the 80s and 90s look like nothing.
fire h1b's first!
In the future, designing home involves designing a transparent, wireless computing environment where the portable devices, clusters of parallel processors and user interfaces are equally welcomed and serving each other to serve the needs and wants of the inhabitants. The PC of the future is all around us, part of the cloud, apart from the cloud.
How many employees do you actually need to sell PCs? If this was their servers I might agree.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Do you really need to have 50k employees when you simply slap your industrial design and logo on the same reference designs as every other PC company and have all of the manufacturing done by contract at the ODM du jour?
Employers use the OHE (Ostracize, Harass, Expel) method to dispose of employees. First, your bosses begin ignoring you, as if your job no longer matters. If that doesn't encourage you to quit, they begin micromanaging the livin' bejeezus out you, convincing you that they REALLY WANT YOU TO GO AWAY. If that doesn't work, they finally relent, and give you the boot.
I've got to give credit to Microsoft and Intel for making it easy to create a PC company. Intel produces a reference PC design, and a large number of chips. So, the design can get minor tweaks, for putting the design into manufacturing. So, you have to manufacture, sell, and provide warranty support for the PC. Today, manufacturing can be outsourced to companies like Foxconn, selling can be done by retail stores. It is warranty support, which grabs many companies.
They just need to replace the management with the management of Lenova. It is amazing what the managers at Lenova were able to to do IBM's unprofitable computer business. That is true leadership. If HP could just hire that crack team of Lenova managers, I think they could turn their non profitable business around.
On the other hand, they could just blame their non profitability on lazy non-productive USAian workers, then fire them, and then give themselves executive bonuses due to their magnificent ability to cut costs.
To me this second option seems like the worse path, but then I am an idiot who never did ever graduate from the Harvard school of business. I am sure those Harvard folks running HP will make the right decision.
It's pretty much a "day in the life" for HP to make people redundant. I'm convinced they only do it to boost their stock price.
If you look at the HP Origins movie which they show to all new hires, HP brags of a company that cares about it's employees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Excuse me while I feel violently ill. Maybe that used to be the case when Bill and Dave were alive..... but now....?
How the mighty have fallen. It's very sad watching that video.
The real problem for HP is that they now make "Made in China" crap and ride on their brand name and it's past glories. I can't think of a worse brand for computers now. Quality seems to be an afterthought in the drive to produce stuff that only barely just scrapes past the warranty period. Every HP I have come across has had some lingering issue with it. Dead and dying keyboards, broken hinges off the bottom of laptops, laptops that fall apart, random blue-screens on their business docks, glitchy displays, Windows 10 upgrades that cause serious display issues, their custom HP BIOS that blocks third party hardware from being used (forcing the consumer to endure phone support to buy HP parts at greatly inflated prices), their printers from barring 3rd party ink through firmware updates, etc. etc. etc. and that's just what I've seen.
Sure all brands have the occasional bad egg, but HP seem to create more than others.
And yet, HP equipment floods the market where I live, and given the choice... it's just cheap and nasty. ... and heaven help you if you have to deal with their support.
So these days they're almost irrelevant in the consumer space. Microsoft pushed people away from Windows with Windows 8 and has been scrambling to bring them back. Then of course most computers these days are good enough for most people and don't need to be upgraded constantly. ...and then you have Windows PCs for most everyone else who hasn't got the memo yet - but yet relies on office and the like.
Then, you have iPads for most people who just want email and to surf the internet
Then you have Macs for most people who want to do stuff rather than wrestle with a computer
That said, Windows computer issues keeps most home IT techs in business.... as they'd otherwise be working for HP.... if HP didn't send their jobs overseas.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Amazon is now hiring! Enjoy your pay cut!
I am a 63 years old young man and I think my brain may need a software upgrade :) Or do I need to step into a Tesla coil and give my self a control alt delete reboot? :)
Who was HP? I have an HP 202C Audio Oscillator. It's one of those instruments that have the tubes (little glass bulbs that glow dimly in the dark) inside it and creates audio tones. I truly wonderful piece of test equipment. :)
Now, please remind me, who are HP now? I don't think they make test equipment; isn't it computers now? Or is it printers? I forgot. Or do they only manufacture layoffs now?
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
HP customer support is about to get worse over the next three years. So, if you are an HP customer already dealing with what you might consider lack luster support perhaps buying another HP, in the long view, isn't such a smart move.
I bought HP laptops for years and thankfully stopped. The battery life is painfully short, running from one power outlet to another. I have seen the world's dumbest design flaws, like a heat sink at the BOTTOM of the laptop (should be the side). There are blatant ripoffs of Mac designs. An HP laptop is often over five pounds and has crappy battery life and is a bulky thing to lug. The warranties suck, the tech support sucks. If you never use the Windows OS and install Linux, HP will never refund you the Windows tax. Dealing with HP customer service is a nightmare....I could go on....If they built better machines, had better support and let customers choose what OS they want, I would have less issues with them.
I got a kick out out of the use of the word 'slump'. It suggests a temporary drop, as opposed to a permanent decline in demand for a new computer.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Years ago i was tasked with sorting out a hp computer for a friend so i used the live chat in windows help. Alas i was not an american - no help. Years later the phone line support (charged) gave me the wrong phone number when the windows key became invalid.
Since i dont need or want a windows license, and can buy linux computers without the microsoft tax why would i want to buy hp internationally ?
That old hp computer is still working but now has linux on it, hp wont be supplying the replacement.
When this [nanometer transistors] is ready for mass production, we're about to see a boom in computing that will make the 80s and 90s look like nothing.
No it wont, it will just make my system unit smaller, or rather the microchips in my system unit smaller. For which I don't give a toss because my system unit is already small enough to fit unnoticed in a corner under my desk, and can already do more than I need it to as a computer despite being over 10 years old.
If you are talking about microchips getting smaller (and cheaper) enough to be put into more and more things, then that revolution is already happening (or has happened already - credit cards for example); but I would not define that as "computing". So the processor in my credit card will be smaller, but it will still be a credit card.
I've got to give credit to Microsoft and Intel for making it easy to create a PC company. Intel produces a reference PC design, and a large number of chips. So, the design can get minor tweaks, for putting the design into manufacturing. So, you have to manufacture, sell, and provide warranty support for the PC. Today, manufacturing can be outsourced .....
I missed where Microsoft came in.
It was IBM who made it easy to create a PC company. When they introduced the PC they did not think it important enough (a passing fad, they preferred mainframes) to make most of the stuff themselves so they contracted it out. Intel and Microsoft were just two of those contractors. And IBM did not stop those contractors from selling the same stuff to third parties - other computer makers. So a cottage industry of PC clone makers sprang up using Intel chips and of course MSDos, among other things.
In fact Microsoft made things hard for those other PC makers - and still do - like charging silly prices and stopping them from pre-installing OS/2, Beos or Linux. Alan Sugar (of Amstrad) said of the price of Microsoft's software : "... as a computer manufacturer we are really a servant of Microsoft ... the bill of material content of our computers, the highest price ticket item in there, is the royalty we pay them [Microsoft] to put Windows in the box"
HP and all the other manufacturers are caught in the perfect storm of:
- PCs having enough power for almost anything an end user can throw at them (including games) for a much longer period of time
- Tablets cannibalizing the "information consumer" side of the market
- Nothing really exciting and new in the PC space for years
The industry in general is hyping the cloud as well, which basically reduces PCs to thin clients...even though all those JavaScript front ends require at least a full processor core and 16 GB of RAM to run efficiently (sarcasm...in case you didn't notice.)
I do end user computing in the business world. Yes, Millennials are bringing their phones and tablets in, but outside of a few niches, most of the real work gets done on PCs or Surface-esque full PCs in a tablet form. I sure hope HP is using these 4,000 layoffs to refocus on providing a rock-solid line of business PCs and dumping all their consumer junk down the toilet. That's the side of the industry that is falling off a cliff...you can't make margin on $300 PCs, and consumers don't need them as much as businesses need $700 PCs with real warranties and support.
Gotta feel for the employees of Samsung's printer/MFP division, who HP purchased. I bet a LOT of them will get terminated also.
hp has a reputation that their products are junk - people are not buying them - which is great - hope that hp fails and collapses
are mostly in America. IOW, this is just more BS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If the workers of the world all lose their jobs and become unemployed, are they still being exploited? Communism is about addressing worker exploitation issues. In this case, the chains - binding them to their jobs - are all gone. Unfortunately, w/ that goes the chains of their wages to them.
Well both of those things probably attributed to the issue, I think this probably has more to do with profitability and short term stock returns than any actual "trend" in PC sales.
I heard very recently that HP was spinning off the most profitable part of the company into another one. I've heard that the largest investor of HP with something like a 6% stake is suing the company because he will be with the with the less profitable PC and Printer business which is being held up by the other. This could be simply a way to make the company look more profitable in the short term so the CEO doesn't get sued for hobbling the company's share prices.
Tried looking for the news online, but can't find it... It could be that HP has just been sued so many times and that this is very recent news so it is like a needle in a online haystack.
Warranty support? Barely 1-3 years, when nothing happens to your PC. After that, good luck. Better idea - have an annual contract w/ the Geek Squad, if you're not technically inclined.
Someone who is in the industry probably has more insight than myself, but if money into PC desktops goes down, will r&d also go down and slow future progression in technology such as VR? Seems to me the office environment could benefit from AR or VR.
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