July 20, 2005
Carly's legacy

So what kind of shape did Carly Fiorina leave HP in after she grabbed the golden handshake? Here's a hint.


Hewlett-Packard will cut 14,500 jobs worldwide, including an unspecified number from its Houston campus.

Most of the reductions will come from support staffs.

"The job reductions are targeted at areas where our cost structure needs to be reduced, and more than half of the actions are targeted at support functions, such as information technology, human resources and finance," said HP's President and CEO Mark Hurd in a conference call this morning.

While the company is hoping some employees will leave voluntarily, it expects the majority of the reductions to come through layoffs.


LA Time business columnist Michael Hiltzik, filling in at Political Animal, gives some context to Fiorina's failures, and the utter lack of responsibility she (or really, most CEOs these days) bears for them. Nice work if you can get it, no?

UPDATE: Loren Steffy is unimpressed by HP's announcement, and as Anne notes in the comments, he has a better suggestion for cost cutting in the future.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 20, 2005 to Bidness | TrackBack
Comments

Check out Loren Steffy:
http://blogs.chron.com/fulldisclosure/archives/2005/07/if_companies_ar.html

Posted by: Anne on July 20, 2005 6:03 AM

Anyone know how much in bonuses the execs will get for meeting cost-cutting goals through making thousands of heads roll?

I grudgingly accept that sometimes big business has to make job cuts. But when the execs are rewarded for doing it, it's nothing short of disgusting.

Posted by: Tim on July 20, 2005 8:32 AM

And I am sure that she got a multi-million dollar golden parachute, just like Michael Capellas did after he bailed out of the sinking ship of Compaq. Its amazing that we let these CEO's drive companies into the ground and continue to pay them millions and millions of dollars. Its ridiculous. The entire country is awash in the rhetoric of "accountability", denouncing lying politicians, welfare, so-called frivelous lawshuits, etc, etc. yet we don't put our foot down concerning these free-loading unaccountable CEO's who make 100's of time smore than the average employee under them.

Posted by: dude on July 22, 2005 4:13 PM