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HP to cut 25-30k jobs

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Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#291

Post by ebiester »

mring33621 wrote: post #221
BorgHunter wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to depend on the totality of the circumstances, in Illinois, so I'd imagine the nonvoluntary nature of the termination would be taken into account. But there doesn't seem to be a clear answer. If it ended up in litigation it could get messy; there isn't a terribly large amount of guidance from the courts.

Regardless of the possibility of litigation, the logic is very simple: 1) a non-compete indicates that the employee has some skillset or knowledge that the business does not want to lose to a competitor; 2) the involuntary release of that same employee indicates that (1) is no longer true, unless the released employee is fairly compensated for the non-compete period. I would feel pretty comfortable presenting this ar…

http://www.wbjournal.com/article/20120903/PRINTEDITION/30830... says otherwise, as do other resources I've checked.

Now, you usually have to be a bigger fish to get a non-compete enforced, or you have to threaten business. Most places that have a contract with HP will still have a contract even after hiring an expert. Fortune 1000 companies have better lawyers that know how to craft jobs to avoid exactly these scenarios.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#292

Post by paulmd »

jasode wrote: post #158
joshmn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a great idea, but I don't know if he's such an entrepreneur or risk-taker. Some people are, some people aren't. It's a natural thing. I'm not sure of the papers he's signed (non-competes...), or the contracts that HP has with their customers (there must be some), but... he could definitely "get the band together" and pull off such a feat. Again, I think this goes back to the contracts he had. He's on…

>He's one of 4 remaining from the "blue days" (time with Digital); I think they'd be able to pull it off if they did go this route. They're all pretty awesome. From personal experience, I want to add some long-term expectations about commanding premium consulting rates -- especially as it relates to vendor-proprietary knowledge. I used to work for an enterprise software firm and was on their "crisis firefighting team…

For people who work with legacy technologies, it can actually be the reverse situation. Yeah, your knowledge of The Latest Hipster Web Framework becomes less valuable year on year, but the situation is a little different for senior personnel running Fortune 50-level ops on legacy technologies. They aren't exactly churning OpenVMS systems architects out of coding boot camps. It's a lot the same situation as COBOL programmers are in - they're not something you need a million of, the work may not be 100% stable, but when you do need them they're fixing mission-critical systems that have millions/billions of dollars of business riding on them and the rates are astronomical.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#293

Post by sgt101 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #81
wpietri wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing the math on this, they apparently believe that each one of those people is costing the company $108k per year, net. Given that HP's revenue per employee is ~$350k, I find those numbers simply unbelievable. And let's suppose for a second that HP is somehow right. How did they just notice that 10% of their employees are doing something totally worthless? On top of the 55,000 employees that they laid off in 2012?…

And let's suppose for a second that HP is somehow right. How did they just notice that 10% of their employees are doing something totally worthless? The keyword to search for in the economic literature is "labor hoarding". In short, companies tend to (by default) keep employees until well after they are no longer useful. Then some sort of a shock causes the company to shed the deadwood all at once. This is management…

But it's a weird idea. The assumption is that the activity of a company is limited to a static set of things and that when those things require less activity (because the market shrinks) then the people are not required.

In fact companies are constantly starting and changing business activities, and their people should be being moved onto those new activities, sometimes these activities fail, and I would argue that the shock is the result of a set of these transitions failing, resulting in a collapse of the organisms ability to adapt - and layoffs.

This is what seems to be happening at IBM and HP - their management (at all levels) has stopped being able to find new activities for their workforce, and this failure is creating the shocks. My belief is that this is due to a disruption - specifically Hadoop, which has torpedoed the market for differentiated servers and software in enterprise data. "The Machine" was an attempt by HP to ride this out and find an new set of activities (by redefining enterprise computing) maybe the 3D crosspoint announcements from Intel have convinced the HP Enterprise management that the gig is up for this and there is no point in continuing?

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#294

Post by qzcx »

reuven wrote: post #135

My first job, when I finished college in 1992, was at HP. They hesitated to offer me a job, because they said that when HP offers someone a position, they're basically offering them a job for life. Sure, you can snicker at that comment, since almost no company would (or can, or should) make such a claim nowadays. But people told me that before I got there, in the mid-1980s, there were big problems at the company. Rat…

Actually ExxonMobile makes that claim still.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#295

Post by gaius »

mtbcoder wrote: post #130
sremani wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new corporations are about efficiencies they are not paternalistic as their post-war incarnations. The situation is unfortunate but HP Enterprise Services has a goal of 60% off-shore workforce ( http://finance.yahoo.com/news/meg-whitman-hp-offshore-60-224... ). That would mean HP is going IBM route even though IBM got wacked big time.

In other words, "offshore all jobs except the ones that we need to keep our lucrative government contracts."

... And those jobs will be done by indentured H1Bs.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#296

Post by yuhong »

sgt101 wrote: post #293
yummyfajitas wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let's suppose for a second that HP is somehow right. How did they just notice that 10% of their employees are doing something totally worthless? The keyword to search for in the economic literature is "labor hoarding". In short, companies tend to (by default) keep employees until well after they are no longer useful. Then some sort of a shock causes the company to shed the deadwood all at once. This is management…

But it's a weird idea. The assumption is that the activity of a company is limited to a static set of things and that when those things require less activity (because the market shrinks) then the people are not required. In fact companies are constantly starting and changing business activities, and their people should be being moved onto those new activities, sometimes these activities fail, and I would argue that t…

I think the failure of memristors played a bigger role. I think Intel was beating HP in R&D probably long before that. I wonder if HP should have been taken private back in 2000 or so.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#297

Post by atomicUpdate »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #149
scholia wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM has a smaller turnover and employs even more....

IBM blacklists anyone who ever quits. Its emotional blackmail - "You'll never work in this industry again!" They're experts at giving the impression of career growth while underpaying.

Both versions of our IBM stories are obviously anecdotal, but just to show you're not 100% correct, they told me the door was always open if I ever wanted to go back. I also knew several people that had come and gone.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#298

Post by qzcx »

mkhpalm wrote: post #228

You know layoffs are coming up when your boss starts announcing things like dress codes in R&D due to "customer complaints". Severance packages are way more expensive than people leaving on their own.

The executives completely renounced the whole dress code thing though. It was some middle manager who though it would be a great idea for his unit and got slammed after it hit public media.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#299

Post by taurath »

mapt wrote: post #111
melling wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $1,000/month that's over 10% of his pre-tax income at his current job. That's a lot of money if you aren't working and your income goes to zero.

Yes, but if that happens, thanks to the other half of Obamacare (the Medicaid expansion), if income goes to zero / povertylevel for any adult (no longer merely special classes of disabled or child-raising adult), then healthcare becomes free. People with big enough health problems that the heavily subsidized Silver market category is insufficient, but who have only a middle class income, do get stung in this system;…

Do they not count the most recent income? What if you get laid off (or even quit) and suddenly have no income, but for the last year you were making a lot?

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#300

Post by x0x0 »

taurath wrote: post #299
mapt wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but if that happens, thanks to the other half of Obamacare (the Medicaid expansion), if income goes to zero / povertylevel for any adult (no longer merely special classes of disabled or child-raising adult), then healthcare becomes free. People with big enough health problems that the heavily subsidized Silver market category is insufficient, but who have only a middle class income, do get stung in this system;…

Do they not count the most recent income? What if you get laid off (or even quit) and suddenly have no income, but for the last year you were making a lot?

The tax credits are calculated on your annual income. So if your income suddenly falls, you have two options:

1 - if you have the savings, just pay the bill and you'll get even with Uncle Sam when you do taxes next year

2 - call obamacare and ask for immediate credits. The credits are based on your annual income, so for example if you got laid off in June you'll get one set of credits for that year, since you had an income for half of it, and larger credits the next year, assuming you still need obamacare and don't have a job.

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