CANADA : HP TO LAY-OFF 200 EMPLOYEES

[Anonymous]

http://www.columbian.com/article/20090126/BIZ01/701279960
HP cutting 150 to 200 jobs
Layoffs, shift of work overseas call into question firm’s future in Vancouver
Hewlett-Packard
Co. is in the process of laying off at least 150 Vancouver workers, and
possibly more than 200, as it scraps its local Edgeline printer team
and shrinks other engineering groups.

Coupled with HP’s effort
to find a buyer for its 174-acre campus at 18110 S.E. 34th St, these
moves call into question the company’s long-term plans in
Vancouver.Once one of the engines of Clark County’s economy, the Palo
Alto, Calif.-based tech firm employed more than 3,300 people in
Vancouver at its peak in the late 1990s, and remains one of the top
paying companies around. Many workers earn close to or more than
$100,000 a year.But from 1,800 Vancouver workers in 2005, HP’s local
staffing levels may be down to 650 at the end of this round of layoffs,
according to a laid-off employee.These most recent cuts, verified
through federal labor documents and interviews with affected workers,
come on top of hundreds of layoffs of marketing and engineering
employees over the past two years.

HP “is shifting prototype
testing, as well as some work on research designs, engineering
specifications and drawings, abroad, including to Singapore,” according
to U.S. Department of Labor documents. This inkjet lab move will affect
at least 52 Vancouver employees, a labor official said.

Similar
work done by HP’s Vancouver-based Edgeline Development and Operations
Group will also move overseas, according to other documents. This will
affect at least 93 Vancouver employees, who work for HP and for 15
related contract staffing agencies, the Labor official said.The local
cuts are actually much higher than the official figures, according to a
contract worker who has been informed that he is losing his job.
“Approximately 180 contract workers have been notified that their
positions have been eliminated, most of them have already been
dismissed,” he said.HP is also cutting 60 jobs at its sister site in
Corvallis, Ore., according to federal Labor Department figures.HP
officials declined to comment on the local and Oregon cuts, but did
issue a written statement confirming that the company’s Imaging and
Printing Division, which includes Vancouver, is shifting jobs amongst
sites.“The realignment of IPG’s business entails shifting resources
from slower growing businesses to new business opportunities,” the
statement said. “In some cases, parts of IPG’s business will experience
reductions while investments will be made in high growth segments of
the business.”

Pay contrasts
Employees of HP are taking the
news as a blow, especially following reports by the Reuters news agency
that Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Mark Hurd received compensation of
$42.5 million in 2008.“Nobody is worth $45.2 million for one year of
employment,” said a laid-off worker, who said he was disgusted by
Hurd’s high salary at a time when employees have seen pay frozen and
jobs cut.On the bright side, many laid-off workers can receive extra
unemployment benefits and assistance through the Trade Adjustment
Assistance Program.This program covers expenses associated with the job
search process, can help cover the cost of relocation, and will cover
the cost of retraining for some employees. It also extends the length
of time that laid-off workers can receive unemployment insurance
payments to as many as 130 weeks, depending on individual
circumstances.Many laid-off workers were briefed on these benefits at a
Jan. 15 meeting with state Employment Security Department officials.

Ripple effect
As
they head to the WorkSource Center instead of day jobs, a ripple effect
is beginning to be felt around HP’s east Vancouver neighborhood, where
the average household income is about $70,000.Fewer HP regulars have
been showing up at Quiznos over the past month or two, said Heidi
Grunau, a crew member at the sub shop a few blocks east of HP’s
Vancouver.Grunau, who works the lunch shift Sunday through Friday at
Quiznos, said the restaurant regularly serves workers from the nearby
operations of tech companies HP, Sharp and WaferTech. Customers from HP
have openly talked about layoffs taking place at the Vancouver campus
for the past two months, she said.Three decades ago, HP and Tektronix
were among the first large employers to build in a mostly rural east
Vancouver, and seemed destined to be among the county’s largest
employers.Tektronix pulled out in the mid-1980s, and HP began to shrink
in 1999, when it eliminated printer manufacturing and laid off 1,000
workers.

In their place, however, has grown a diverse east Clark
County employment base. In addition to large high-tech companies like
Sharp, WaferTech and SEH America, businesses large and small have
filled the bustling Columbia Tech Center.Hewlett-Packard’s diminished
clout in Clark County marks more than a shift for the community that
grew around it. It also represents shifts in the history of the inkjet
printer.Inkjets were first invented through a collaboration between HP
engineers in Vancouver and Corvallis, and first manufactured in Clark
County. But the competition has caught up, making consumer printers a
cutthroat industry. People are buying fewer printers, printing less and
buying less ink from HP.Vancouver workers have said they feel that HP’s
growth plans center around computer programs and business support
packages, and that there are fewer opportunities for inkjet printer
engineers to advance within the company.Now HP seems to be shifting
those development opportunities that do still exist abroad, far from
where these products were first born.

[Author]

January 28, 2009 at 3:54 PM