HPE to cut dozens of UK jobs

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is planning to cut dozens of jobs in the UK and is considering shutting down one of its engineering offices in Northern Ireland. The US tech giant is apparently ready to offload a number of staff from its Belfast 3PAR engineering office and is considering shutting down the facility altogether, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

Last week, it emerged that HPE was set to slash 5,000 jobs globally.According to Bloomberg, the reductions are expected to begin before the end of the year and will finish within the first quarter of 2018. Job cuts are expected to encompass all areas of the business with managers roles also under threat. Although unconfirmed the cuts will affect both the US workforce as well as those working abroad.

Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman has been pushing for cuts since 2015, slimming down workforce in departments such as personal computers, printers, business services and key software units. She claims that the cuts are essential to making HPE more competitive against other cloud providers such as Amazon and Google.

Earlier this month she said that she is pushing to ‘cut layers’ in order for the organisation to become more efficient. “With fewer lines of business and clear strategic priorities, we have the opportunity to create an internal structure and operating model that is simpler, nimbler and faster,” she said. At the same time, chief financial officer Tim Stonesifer said the company is targeting $1.5 billion in savings over a three-year period.

HPE first set up its ‘Global Centre of Software Engineering Excellence’ in Belfast in 2012. But now the firm is understood to be shutting down its 3PAR team in Belfast.

A spokesman for HPE told the Belfast Telegraph: "These changes are part of a company-wide strategy to give HPE the needed workforce to be a more nimble customer and partner-centric company. This change will not cause any disruption to HPE’s customer support and we remain fully committed to 3PAR."