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HP to cut 25'000 jobs after EDS acquisition



The concerns expressed last week by EDS and HP trade union representatives regarding the possible effects on employment of the merger became reality on Monday when the company announced it will cut 25’000 jobs or 7.5% of the workforce in the next three years.



Half of the cuts will take place in the United States, mainly at EDS, in various departments such as accounting, human resources and legal while engineers should not be affected. Nonetheless, the size of the cuts even surprised Wall Street analysts defining it as “enormously higher” than expectations.



Although half of the eliminated positions may be refilled over the course of the reorganization, UNI Global Union urges HP management to provide a detailed plan for redeployment and re-skilling of the workers affected. Since these layoffs are part of a three-year plan to compete against IBM and “drive shareholder value”, unions hope other redundancies won’t occur in the future.



Finally, UNI Global Union would like to express its disappointment regarding the lack of management’s communication with unions since HP had never detailed previously how many employees of the combined company would lose their jobs.