PreCentral: HP to possibly cut up to 30,000 jobs in restructuring plan

[News Reporter]

According to several reports across the interwebs, HP could be cutting as many as 30,000 jobs in a new restructuring plan starting as early as May 23rd. On that day, according to several sources, CEO Meg Whitman will announce a company-wide restructuring plan that will include the cuts of approximately 10 to 20 percent of the current  workforce of 320,000 employees. The numbers all vary from source to source but usually when there is this much grumbling in the tech world it is almost a guarantee that something is going to go down. 

Before you all go pointing your fingers at Meg keep in mind when she took the helm at HP she was handed a company that was on a downward spiral the like of which was almost unrivaled in the tech industry. The now infamous former CEO Léo Apotheker who had no previous hardware experience, killed off production of webOS hardware, attempted to spin off HP's PC division, and pretty much wanted to change the focus of the company altogether. Shortly after all of these decisions made by good ol' Léo, shareholders witnessed HP stock plummet more than 20% in a single day. Needless to say Meg Whitman had her work cut out for her when she took over as CEO of HP. So we are sure that if she does in fact make the decision to cut all these jobs it will be for an awfully good reason. 

This unfortunately should feel all too familiar to the webOS community as we've seen our fair share of job cuts in recent history. Fortunately webOS or HP's Personal Systems Group have not been directly mentioned in any of the sources. However, with a cut this large one can almost bet on the proverbial "axe" reaching across the entirety of HP. Heck even the poor guy who pushes the mail cart around the offices should be scared at this point! All we can say is that we sincerely hope that webOS doesn't take any hits from this as there really isn't much left to cut. Stay tuned and we will keep you informed of any news that may come out of all of this. 

Update: Enda McGrath has told us on Twitter that this will not be affecting webOS. Bullet dodged!

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