HP woes continue as 5,000 more employees face the axe (updated)
It certainly won't be a happy new year for thousands of HP employees -- not when the company has increased its layoff numbers yet again. Hewlett-Packard already adjusted the number of people it needed to let go from 27,000 to 29,000 a year ago, but it's now added another 5,000 to the total. According to HP's new SEC 10-K filing, cutting off 34,000 positions will save the ailing firm $4.1 billion per fiscal year. Since the company's only done removing 24,600 people, it's bound to let go of 9,000 more until October 2014. The good news (for everyone left anyway) is that CEO Meg Whitman has promised that this will be the last big round of layoffs. HP's undergone several management changes and restructuring efforts these past few years, though, so here's hoping Whitman's words hold true.
Update (01/01/14): An HP spokesperson reached out and clarified that the company has known it'd likely go beyond 29,000 since early 2013. A SEC filing from March last year states that "the total expected headcount reductions could vary as much as 15% from [its] estimates (29,000)."
