HP Is Firing A Whole Lot of People

Eric Randall

Hewlett-Packard announced Wednesday that they will cut about 27,000 jobs by the end of 2014 in order to save up to $3.5 billion, so that's obviously not great news for the economy.

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We've noted that CEO Meg Whitman has a steep hill to climb to turn the company around, and indeed 27,000 is a very steep number. It represents 8 percent of the company's workforce, in fact. As Bloomberg's Aaron Ricadela reports, Whitman said, "We view any restructuring announcement as a positive move, but one that will take several years to sustainably improve margins, EPS and free cash flow." Positive? Probably not so much if you work for HP.