HP has announced that it intends to cut 10% of its workforce as the company adjusts to falling demand business computers and mobile workstations as businesses around the world continue to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The computer giant revealed (opens in a new tab) Fiscal year 2022 results, showing fourth-quarter revenue down 14.8% compared to the same period last year.
The cuts, which will affect between 4,000 and 6,000 workers, could unveil a struggle not just for HP but for all PC makers as companies can buy less hardware to accommodate hybrid work practices and technology stack cost cutting in the face of the ongoing recession.
HP cost-cutting measures
As noted by Wall Street Journal (opens in a new tab)the massive layoffs come after HP added about 10,000 employees compared to the same period last year.
However, the company realized there were other ways to save money than wasting the lives of ordinary workers who were also trying to stay afloat in the cost of living crisis.
In what it calls a “future-ready transformation in fiscal year 2023,” and anyone else might call “a plethora of cost-containment measures,” HP claimed it would save on “digital transformation, portfolio optimization, and operational efficiencies.”
One concrete example was taking advantage of rapidly declining demand for equipment by relying on cheaper, slower sea freight deliveries as opposed to faster air freight.
HP’s announcement of new cost-cutting strategies follows publication data (opens in a new tab)showing that demand for PCs across the entire hardware manufacturing industry is declining at the fastest rate in two decades, with no sign of stopping.
Evidence of this is found in recent WSJ reports that Intel (opens in a new tab) and Advanced Micro Devices (opens in a new tab) (AMD) are also turning to cost-cutting measures to ease economic tensions.