HP to Cut up to 6,000 Jobs Amid PC Sales Drop
Word of the computing giant's layoffs comes as staff cuts sweep across large tech companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter.
HP was once the world's largest PC maker.
HP, once the world's largest PC maker, said it plans to cut between 4,000 and 6,000 jobs by the end of its fiscal 2025, making it the latest tech giant to lay off thousands of employees in response to increasing economic uncertainty.
The word of the layoffs, which the company announced alongside an 11% drop in quarterly sales, came a month after industry watchers IDC and Gartner warned that demand for computers is dropping at its fastest pace in decades.
"We think that at this point it's prudent not to assume that the market will turn during 2023," Chief Executive Enrique Lores told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.
HP's layoffs make it the latest in a string of tech giants cutting staff in response to an increasingly sour economy, marked by high inflation that's dented demand for goods and slowed ad spending. Other big names in the tech world, including Facebook parent Meta, Google parent Alphabet, Intel and Apple have either slowed hiring or cut staff after rapidly growing their staff during the pandemic. Twitter has cut deeply into its staffing in the weeks since Elon Musk took over.
PC makers like HP appear particularly hard hit after demand jumped from people upgrading home computers for school and work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The only company that appears to be beating that trend is Apple, which continues to report record sales driven in part by launches of highly anticipated new laptops and tablets.