HP plans to cut 30000 jobs

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is reportedly planning to cut about 25,000 to 30,000 jobs. That amount of job cuts would represent 8 to 10 % of the company's total workforce. The PC maker is expected to announce its restructuring plan soon. The focus of this restructuring would be to reduce cost, and help the company cope up with the decreasing demand for computers and services, according to AFP. Most of the cuts, around 10,000 to 15,000 will be from HP's enterprise services group. The unit, which sells a range of information technology services, has been struggling with decreasing profitability, said sources from the company who choose to remain anonymous. The sources also added that the plans are not final and may still change. Since taking office in September, HP CEO Meg Whitman has been trying to turnaround the company's declining sales that led to the ouster of her predecessor, Leo Apotheker. During a conference call with analysts, Whitman will portray the cuts as necessary "not to bolster HP's earnings and satisfy shareholders, but rather as a means to make needed investments," it said. "The cuts will be carried out over a relatively long period of time, perhaps a year or more." According to the sources, Whitman will argue that many of the cuts made at HP during the five years that Mark Hurd was at its helm were made without corresponding investments in new and growing initiatives. In February, the Palo Alto, California-based HP posted a 44 % drop in net profit during the first quarter of its fiscal year to $1.5 billion from a year ago, and 7 % decline in revenue to $30.0 billion. HP's PC sales have continued to drop as consumer demand for tablets, such as Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab, continue to grow. The company has also been slow to adapt to the shift towards cloud computing, away from the IT services HP provides. The overall reduction and additional cost savings throughout the company could result in savings that reach billions of dollars, according to a source from the company. Last March, Whitman announced that the company is combining its PC and printing divisions, which ended speculations of a spin-off of HP's PC unit.