Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
14,500 jobs to be slashed at Hewlett-Packard
Computer and printer giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) revealed plans July 19 to eliminate 14,500 jobs, or some 10 percent of its global workforce of 151,000. The company, based in Palo Alto, California, also said it would freeze the pension and retiree medical-program benefits of certain employees, increasing instead its contributions to most of these workers’ 401(k) plans.
The job destruction was not unexpected. Severe cuts had been anticipated since Mark Hurd, former chief executive at NCR, took over the job at HP four months ago. As many as 25,000 jobs cuts had been predicted, and the actual number and length of time over which they will be spread—six quarters—disappointed some on Wall Street. HP shares fell in the immediate aftermath of the company’s announcement.
HP’s action follows similar moves at IBM, which increased its planned job cuts to 14,500 from 13,000, and Oracle, which will slash 5,000 jobs after purchasing PeopleSoft. The cuts at Hewlett-Packard are the largest there since thousands of jobs were eliminated following the company’s purchase of Compaq Computer in May 2002. In May of this year, 2,000 workers in HP’s imaging and printing unit accepted voluntary severance packages.
Hewlett-Packard faces cutthroat competition in both the printer and computer markets. The firm lost its position as the number-one seller of personal computers (PCs) to Dell last year. The research firm IDC reported Monday that Dell increased its global lead in the personal computer market in the second quarter, with worldwide growth of 23.7 percent, compared to HP’s 16.3 percent. Dell generated $891,000 per worker last year, compared to $529,000 at HP.
Director of research at Pacific American Securities, Michael Cohen, quoted by Bloomberg News, noted, “It’s obvious to everyone that their cost structure is out of kilter, especially in relation to Dell.” HP also faces IBM in consulting services, and its profitable printer and ink business (it is the world’s largest maker of printers) has come under increasing pressure.
Associated Press writes, “HP’s PC division has long been rumored as a spin-off candidate, especially after the $19 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp. failed to pay off as [former chief executive Carly] Fiorina had promised before her ouster.
“ ‘HP has been a fairly messed up company over the last few years,’ said Mark Stahlman, an analyst at Caris & Co. ‘The history of the company got scrambled. A lot of projects got thrown together. Then it only got worse at the end when services and enterprise were coupled and PCs got thrown into printing.’ ”
Most of the job slashing will take place in HP’s support functions—information technology, human resources and finance—and the remainder will come from its business units. By 2007, the cuts are expected to save the company $1.9 billion a year. No announcement was made as to where the cuts will be carried out. The company does business in 178 countries.
Outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas announced recently that planned job cuts in the US rose to 110,996 in June, the highest total in 17 months. Corporate announcements of job reductions increased 35 percent from May and were up 73 percent from June 2004. So far in 2005, reported layoffs are up 14 percent over a year ago.
In June, layoffs were at an all-time high in the retail and automotive industries. Last month alone, 45,378 jobs were cut in the auto industry and 24,065 in retail. Challenger reported that 99,257 technology-related job cuts have been announced this year, a 56 percent increase over the same period in 2004.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/jobs-j20.shtml
HP’s action follows similar moves at IBM, which increased its planned job cuts to 14,500 from 13,000, and Oracle, which will slash 5,000 jobs after purchasing PeopleSoft. The cuts at Hewlett-Packard are the largest there since thousands of jobs were eliminated following the company’s purchase of Compaq Computer in May 2002. In May of this year, 2,000 workers in HP’s imaging and printing unit accepted voluntary severance packages.
Hewlett-Packard faces cutthroat competition in both the printer and computer markets. The firm lost its position as the number-one seller of personal computers (PCs) to Dell last year. The research firm IDC reported Monday that Dell increased its global lead in the personal computer market in the second quarter, with worldwide growth of 23.7 percent, compared to HP’s 16.3 percent. Dell generated $891,000 per worker last year, compared to $529,000 at HP.
Director of research at Pacific American Securities, Michael Cohen, quoted by Bloomberg News, noted, “It’s obvious to everyone that their cost structure is out of kilter, especially in relation to Dell.” HP also faces IBM in consulting services, and its profitable printer and ink business (it is the world’s largest maker of printers) has come under increasing pressure.
Associated Press writes, “HP’s PC division has long been rumored as a spin-off candidate, especially after the $19 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp. failed to pay off as [former chief executive Carly] Fiorina had promised before her ouster.
“ ‘HP has been a fairly messed up company over the last few years,’ said Mark Stahlman, an analyst at Caris & Co. ‘The history of the company got scrambled. A lot of projects got thrown together. Then it only got worse at the end when services and enterprise were coupled and PCs got thrown into printing.’ ”
Most of the job slashing will take place in HP’s support functions—information technology, human resources and finance—and the remainder will come from its business units. By 2007, the cuts are expected to save the company $1.9 billion a year. No announcement was made as to where the cuts will be carried out. The company does business in 178 countries.
Outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas announced recently that planned job cuts in the US rose to 110,996 in June, the highest total in 17 months. Corporate announcements of job reductions increased 35 percent from May and were up 73 percent from June 2004. So far in 2005, reported layoffs are up 14 percent over a year ago.
In June, layoffs were at an all-time high in the retail and automotive industries. Last month alone, 45,378 jobs were cut in the auto industry and 24,065 in retail. Challenger reported that 99,257 technology-related job cuts have been announced this year, a 56 percent increase over the same period in 2004.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/jobs-j20.shtml
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
Look at this. I have many friends who majored in computer science or had programming jobs around 2000 who had to entirely leave the industry after spending several years unemployed. One friend in particular was one of the rare people who got his full four year degree after the air force in computer science and english, and he got great grades, and did several good student programming projects. He is essentially going back to school at night to get his english masters so he can teach english at a community college. He spent over 12 months going to many jobs interviews, after getting no response to most job applications, because computer companies do not hire entry level programmers and IT workers, even if they are at the top of the class. He finally got a job running a companies online sales website, which is actually more similar to a retail position. He also had a 12 month temp position at Microsoft answering questions for businesses over the phone, where he trained his replacement in India at the end.
So it is not mysterious why students facing economic reality are having to choose something else at college.
Yet Bill Gates has not even caught on to what his own company is doing. He has no idea why there are no experienced programmers, when they refuse to hire any entry level people.
Gates puzzled why more students don't choose computer science
Email this story
Printer friendly format
By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE
Associated Press Writer
July 18, 2005, 5:52 PM EDT
REDMOND, Wash. -- Speaking to hundreds of university professors, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Monday that he's baffled more students don't go into computer science.
Gates said that even if young people don't know that salaries and job openings in computer science are on the rise, they're hooked on so much technology _ cell phones, digital music players, instant messaging, Internet browsing _ that it's puzzling why more don't want to grow up to be programmers.
advertisement
advertisement
"It's such a paradox," Gates said. "If you say to a kid, 'Yeah, what are the 10 coolest products you use that your parents are clueless about, that you're good at using,' I don't think they're going to say, 'Oh, you know, it's this new breakfast cereal. And I want to go work in agriculture and invent new cereals or something.' ... I think 10 out of 10 would be things that are software-driven."
Gates made his remarks on the first day of the annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, which drew nearly 400 computer science professors from 175 schools in 20 countries to the software maker's campus.
Sharing the stage with Gates, Maria Klawe, Princeton University's dean of Engineering and Applied Science, said most students she talks to fear that computer science would doom them to isolating workdays fraught with boredom _ nothing but writing reams of code.
Gates said computer scientists need to do a better job of dispelling that myth and conveying that it's an exciting field.
"How many fields can you get right out of college and define substantial aspects of a product that's going to go out and over 100 million people are going to use it?" Gates said. "We promise people when they come here to do programming ... they're going to have that opportunity, and yet we can't hire as many people as we'd like."
Citing statistics from UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, Klawe said students' interest in computer science fell more than 60 percent from 2000 to 2004, even though salaries have increased and more jobs have opened up.
Klawe opened an hourlong question-and-answer with Gates by asking him what he thought could be done to stem a decline in federal funding for computer science research and graduate education.
In past three years, she noted, the Defense Department's research agency _ a major source of money for computer science academics _ has cut its funding for information technology research at universities almost in half.
The National Science Foundation is awarding a smaller percentage of grants for computer science than for other fields, she said.
Gates said Microsoft and other high-tech companies need to keep telling the government it's making a big mistake _ one that could forestall stunning advancements in medicine, environmental science and other fields.
He also said companies can help by boosting their own investments in research and development.
"The best investment we've ever made is having our Microsoft Research groups," Gates said.
Modeled after academic research facilities, Microsoft Research focuses on work that is relevant to Microsoft's product lineup, such as security or search technology.
Products including the TabletPC have come out of the research arm, which has labs in Redmond; San Francisco; California's Silicon Valley; Cambridge, England; Beijing and Bangalore, India.
So it is not mysterious why students facing economic reality are having to choose something else at college.
Yet Bill Gates has not even caught on to what his own company is doing. He has no idea why there are no experienced programmers, when they refuse to hire any entry level people.
Gates puzzled why more students don't choose computer science
Email this story
Printer friendly format
By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE
Associated Press Writer
July 18, 2005, 5:52 PM EDT
REDMOND, Wash. -- Speaking to hundreds of university professors, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Monday that he's baffled more students don't go into computer science.
Gates said that even if young people don't know that salaries and job openings in computer science are on the rise, they're hooked on so much technology _ cell phones, digital music players, instant messaging, Internet browsing _ that it's puzzling why more don't want to grow up to be programmers.
advertisement
advertisement
"It's such a paradox," Gates said. "If you say to a kid, 'Yeah, what are the 10 coolest products you use that your parents are clueless about, that you're good at using,' I don't think they're going to say, 'Oh, you know, it's this new breakfast cereal. And I want to go work in agriculture and invent new cereals or something.' ... I think 10 out of 10 would be things that are software-driven."
Gates made his remarks on the first day of the annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, which drew nearly 400 computer science professors from 175 schools in 20 countries to the software maker's campus.
Sharing the stage with Gates, Maria Klawe, Princeton University's dean of Engineering and Applied Science, said most students she talks to fear that computer science would doom them to isolating workdays fraught with boredom _ nothing but writing reams of code.
Gates said computer scientists need to do a better job of dispelling that myth and conveying that it's an exciting field.
"How many fields can you get right out of college and define substantial aspects of a product that's going to go out and over 100 million people are going to use it?" Gates said. "We promise people when they come here to do programming ... they're going to have that opportunity, and yet we can't hire as many people as we'd like."
Citing statistics from UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, Klawe said students' interest in computer science fell more than 60 percent from 2000 to 2004, even though salaries have increased and more jobs have opened up.
Klawe opened an hourlong question-and-answer with Gates by asking him what he thought could be done to stem a decline in federal funding for computer science research and graduate education.
In past three years, she noted, the Defense Department's research agency _ a major source of money for computer science academics _ has cut its funding for information technology research at universities almost in half.
The National Science Foundation is awarding a smaller percentage of grants for computer science than for other fields, she said.
Gates said Microsoft and other high-tech companies need to keep telling the government it's making a big mistake _ one that could forestall stunning advancements in medicine, environmental science and other fields.
He also said companies can help by boosting their own investments in research and development.
"The best investment we've ever made is having our Microsoft Research groups," Gates said.
Modeled after academic research facilities, Microsoft Research focuses on work that is relevant to Microsoft's product lineup, such as security or search technology.
Products including the TabletPC have come out of the research arm, which has labs in Redmond; San Francisco; California's Silicon Valley; Cambridge, England; Beijing and Bangalore, India.
Paul Craig Roberts has been writing about this kind of thing frequently in the last year or so. Interestingly, Roberts was a Reagan appointee to the Treasury, and worked on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, yet has become vociferous about the hollowing out of the US economy, and the extent to which the war in Iraq makes the problem worse.
As for Gates, I just think that he's being duplicitous.
--Richard
As for Gates, I just think that he's being duplicitous.
--Richard
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$50.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network