HP Lay off: HP job Cut: Fires 24600 employees

High on the heels of Wipro Layoffs followed by Satyam Layoff, Hewlett Packard or HP, another top IT Giant, has decided to go for a massive HP lay off. As per the news that has come out, Hewlett-Packard plans to cut 7.5 percent of its work force, or 24,600 jobs, seeking to realize savings from its recent acquisition of Electronic Data Systems, the company said on Monday. Is this the time for the IT industry to declare tough times? Already the financial sectors have send jitters to the IT industry, because the BFSI sector is considered to be the top contributor for the IT industry.

Almost 50% of these jobs will be cut in the recently acquired EDS headquarters in Palo Alto, California, USA.

HP estimated $1.8 billion in annual cost savings once the three-year cost-cutting program is completed. At the time the $13.2 billion merger of computer services provider EDS into HP was announced in May, Hewlett-Packard counted 178,000 employees on its books and EDS had 142,000 employees. HP mentioned that majority of the jobs that will be cut will be in terms of overlapping functions in EDS and HP like as in legal, accounting, information technology and human resources.

Work-force reduction plans will vary by country, based on local legal requirements and consultation with works councils and employee representatives, HP said.

The only good news for the employees is that the company will provide employees affected by this restructuring program with severance packages, counseling and job placement services.

Recently, TCS created a big uproar by deducting the salary of employees or going for a salary cut. In India, it was TCS which went for a TCS layoff following TCS salary cuts. Then it was IBM which axed 700 jobs across all over India.
In February, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the country’s largest IT services firm, had given pink slips to 500 non-performers. IBM, too, had asked about 700 employees in India to leave, citing non-performance. In July, Patni Computer Systems had shown the door to 400 employees. While IT companies said the move was not linked to the slowdown in the US, a key market for IT services, there was a consensus that it was time for belt-tightening.