HP To Cut Jobs

Among news of the financila crisis in the stock markets today, Hewlett-Packard has announced that it is making plans to cut 24,600 jobs within the next three years, 8% of its workforce. The plans were announced today after the stock market closed. The move is designed to cut costs as HP combines with newly bought Electronic Data Systems Corp.

The cuts represent the Palo Alto-based company's most aggressive move yet to streamline its operations under Chief Executive Mark Hurd, who engineered the $13.9 billion acquisition to challenge IBM Corp. for more of the lucrative, long-term business of helping companies manage their computing infrastructure.*

Most job cuts will be within EDSs ranks, though half of the jobs will be from the U.S. HP projects that it will save nearly $1.8 billion a year with the cuts. They are however, planning to refill half of the positions after the restructuring. Before the merging, HP had 178,000 people and EDS had 142,000, a total of 320,000 workers.