HP to cut up to 10% of its workforce

The world’s largest IT company, Hewlett Packard, is poised to cut up to 30,000 jobs, according to reports.

News agency Bloomberg has reported that between 10,000 and 15,000 jobs will go from HP’s enterprise services group. The company is expected to make the announcement along with its latest financial report next week.

CEO Meg Whitman gave an indication that more cost cuts were on there way in February this year, after reporting its first quarter results.

In that quarter, HP suffered revenue decline in most of its business units, including PCs, printers and imaging and data centre equipment. The IT services division grew by just 1%. Only the software unit saw substantial growth, thanks to HP’s acquisition of Autonomy last year.

Whitman noted that HP’s "current cost base just isn’t affordable. On the current trajectory, we just won’t have the capacity that we need to invest," she said.

The giants of the IT sector have all struggled to deliver growth of late. In IBM’s latest quarter, for example, it managed just 1% growth.

Of the US-based IT services suppliers, only Accenture – which is not tied to a hardware business – is driving significant growth. Sales rose 12% to $6.8 billion in its most recent quarter, including an 8% rise in Europe.

Yesterday, CSC announced a $1 billion cost cutting initiative following a 2% decline in sales.

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Ben Rossi

Ben was Vitesse Media's editorial director, leading content creation and editorial strategy across all Vitesse products, including its market-leading B2B and consumer magazines, websites, research and...

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