Hewlett Packard to lay off 1,500 UK staff
Hewlett-Packard has followed through on its promise to be ruthless in its quest to save $3bn (£1.96bn) by 2004 by laying off 1580 of its 7600 staff in the UK, over 20%.
The posts will be lost in plants in London, Reading and Livingston.
Scotland’s ‘Silicon Glen’ will lose 650 in the latest blow to the region after Motorola said it would close its plant outside Edinburgh last year with the loss of 3000 jobs.
The new HP employs around 150,000 people worldwide and is seeking to cut this figure by 15,000 following its $19bn merger with Compaq.
The company said it would consult with staff and unions before making the cuts.
‘This is another nail in the coffin of Silicon Glen and is bad news for the Scottish economy,’ Danny Carrigan of the Amicus union told Reuters. ‘We must stem the tide of manufacturing jobs being lost.’