HP STARTS LAYOFFS IN BOISE IDAHO

[Anonymous]

http://www.fox12news.com/Global/story.asp?S=8899317
HP STARTS LAYOFFS IN BOISE IDAHO
Boise,
Idaho — The national economy
is taking its toll on Idahoans, as a number of Hewlett Packard
employees found out Monday they’d no longer be working for the
company.This has been an ongoing theme for high tech companies not
just in Idaho, but nationwide, and financial experts say that’s not
about to change any time soon.”We’ve lost a few thousand
jobs in high tech, and we expect there will be more declines over the
next couple years,” said Mike Ferguson, Idaho Division of Financial
Management.Technically speaking, we’re not in a recession yet,
but Ferguson says it is coming and there are some businesses already
feeling the pinch more than others — mainly new home construction and
high tech companies.

To bring the point a little closer home, Hewlett Packard has reportedly laid off more employees.Company
officials aren’t saying how many, just that the decision was made based
on streamlining procedures which have been ongoing since June.”The
realignment of the business entails shifting resources from slower
growing businesses to new business opportunities,” said Alison Graves,
Hewlett Packard spokesperson.Sadly, it’s not likely to be the last of such announcements.

Forecasts
show the local high tech industry will continue to cut jobs — about
1,500 more in the next year or so, bringing the total to over 4,000
jobs lost since the economic downturn began.”We think that
it’ll probably be 2010 before we see significant recovery in both the
housing sector and the high tech manufacturing sector,” said Ferguson.Some
might think gas prices are driving the issue. Ferguson says in reality
it’s only compounding the problem, which was originally created by real
estate speculators a couple years ago.

That problem has since been repaired, but the price of fuel continues to add to the burden.
The
silver lining, if there is one, is that the forecasted recession should
begin wrapping up by mid 2009, but high tech companies like Hewlett
Packard will continue to struggle until 2010.
“It’s
basically kind of drawn out sluggishness that is going to be with us
for the next couple of years,” said Ferguson.Incidentally, the
last U.S. recession ran between March and November of 2001.Ferguson
says he expects this one to be relatively mild, with a decline in jobs
of around two-tenths of one percent.

[Author]

August 28, 2008 at 1:48 PM