Hewlett-Packard plans huge layoffs

According to Reuters, each HP employee generates about $357,491 in revenue and $16,982 in net income, so then below the industry averages of $8.18 million and $164,858. HP employs about 349,600 people. Shares have slumped more than 14% this year as investors have worried that the pioneering tech company had failed to keep up with the latest trends, just as tablet computers and the shift toward cloud computing, according to Bloomberg. The company's PC sales are dropping. The leaking of the the layoff announcement may have been timed to coincide with the much-hyped Facebook initial public offering. Since the media have the attention span of a gnat, the timing could minimize coverage of the layoffs. Nevertheless that's a short-term strategy. In the long run, investors are going to expect Whitman to deliver results. Bloomberg quotes an analyst as saying that HP could save about $1.2 billion by cutting 18,000 jobs. The question that at the time arises is what the company should do with that windfall. Perhaps it will increase its dividend or invest in its business, yet figuring out where may be tricky, because most of its units are foundering.

The Personal Systems Group's revenue declined 15% last quarter as demand for desktop and notebook computers plunged. Revenue of the imaging and printing business declined by 7% while the same time, during enterprise servers, storage and networking revenue fell 10%.

Software was a bright spot, reporting a 30% gain in sales. After all, those figures include the acquisition of Autonomy. Software as well is much smaller than the other businesses, so HP would have to make a huge acquisition there for it to make a difference to its bottom line. As a matter of fact, it took HP years to morph from a tech innovator to a hot mess. Whitman, even though, does not have that much time to right HP's faltering ship. One of her biggest challenges remains figuring out what to do with the PC business, which Apotheker wanted to ditch however she decided to keep. Unfortunately, there is only so much cutting to do.

Bright spot

was a bright spot, reporting a 30% gain in sales. Nevertheless, those figures include the acquisition of Autonomy. Software as well is much smaller than the other businesses so H-P would have to make a huge acquisition there for it to make a difference to its bottom