HP job cuts to hit 34,000 staff as "market pressures" bite

published 2 January 2014

Ailing tech giant HP has revealed that thousands more jobs will go at the firm before the end of its financial year in October 2014.

The revelation was made in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), where HP admitted that 5,000 more jobs than previously expected could be axed this year.

In July 2013, the company declared that 29,000 jobs would go as part of its multi-year business restructuring plan, which was kicked off in early 2012 by CEO Meg Whitman.

At the time, the company admitted there was a possibility that more jobs than this could be cut by the end of the firm's financial year on 31 October 2014.

This is a scenario the firm's recent SEC filing suggests will be played out over the course of this year.

"Due to continued market and business pressures, as of October 31, 2013, HP expects to eliminate an additional 15 per cent of those 29,000 positions, or a total of approximately 34,000 positions," the document states.

Many of these roles are expected to be discontinued by employees leaving the firm through enhanced early retirement programmes, a move expected to cost the firm billions of dollars.

At the moment, it is unclear how many of these positions will be lost in the UK and other countries where HP operates.

The company's fortunes have been greatly affected in recent years by the slump in demand for PCs, and to date HP has lost ground to rivals that have successfully diversified into tablets and smartphones.

Caroline Donnelly is the news and analysis editor of IT Pro and its sister site Cloud Pro, and covers general news, as well as the storage, security, public sector, cloud and Microsoft beats. Caroline has been a member of the IT Pro/Cloud Pro team since March 2012, and has previously worked as a reporter at several B2B publications, including UK channel magazine CRN, and as features writer for local weekly newspaper, The Slough and Windsor Observer. She studied Medical Biochemistry at the University of Leicester and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism at PMA Training in 2006.

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