HP to lay off 30000 employees, turn to more automation and outsourcing

The latest cuts, in addition to 55,000 lay-off earlier announced under chief executive officer Meg Whitman, would be in the faster-growing corporate hardware and services operations of the company.

The company employs about 300,000 worldwide. The company reportedly invited some employees recently to quit without severance or take a job with a contractor for a much lower salary.

IT firm Hewlett Packard will shed up to 30,000 jobs from its worldwide operations.

Whitman said the move would eliminate the need for future restructuring by enabling “a more competitive, sustainable cost structure for the new Hewlett Packard Enterprise”.

Job cuts have become a way of life at the company in recent years as it has digested a series of acquisitions that failed to revive its fortunes, believe experts.

According to Independent, HP is seeing a large layoff this year with the number of workers who are bound to be jobless ranging from 25,000 to 30,000.

The figure was a revision of its initial forecast of 45,000 as it struggled to catch up with its rivals.

At the time Whitman acknowledged that the job cuts have been “tough on morale” at HP.

While these cuts represent nearly 10pc of HP Enterprise’s workforce, numerous losses will be offset by new hires, with numerous jobs moving to low-priced countries. The charges include $2 billion in severance payments and some $700 million in cost reductions from lease and property disposals associated with the split.

The company will separate into Hewlett-Packard Enterprise – covering server, data centre technology and business consulting – and HP Inc. – covering printers and PCs – in November.

The business is expected to report free cash flow of $US2.0 billion to $US2.2 billion in 2016, at least half of which is expected to be returned through dividends and share buybacks. The stocks dropped the after-hours trading. HP Inc. will be focused on the more consumer markets such as PCs and printers.