HP wields the axe once again and fires 24,600 employees and at least half, or 12,600 will come from the United States.
Ah, now we know HP lobbies heavily for guest worker Visas, claiming they just cannot find workers in the United States. Let's repeat, just in this latest round of workers to the chopping block, HP is firing 12,600.
The Programmer's Guild notes they are also busy sponsoring green cards for workers, while firing 12,600 in the United States.
For the past two years Hewlett-Packard has been running fraudulent job ads whose primary intent is to NOT find qualified Americans to fill positions, but rather to demonstrate that "no qualified Americans are available" as a step in obtaining greencards for their temporary foreign workers. This fraudulent PERM recruitment is continuing even as HP is laying off dozens of qualified American software engineers. The Idaho Department of Labor, by running these sham ads, is now unwittingly a party to this fraud against U.S. workers
Ah, but isn't this the new business of HP, outsourcing, to compete with IBM who has moved thousands and thousands of jobs overseas, even while taking US tax breaks?
IBM, which already employed more than 1,200 in Tulsa, had made a deal with the state to add another 1,000 jobs by 2009. In return, Big Blue would get $35.2 million in rebates over 10 years.
Calling it “great news for Tulsa and for all of Oklahoma,” Gov. Brad Henry praised IBM as “a vital and valuable corporate citizen.” He said the deal “signifies good things for both IBM and Tulsa.”
He was only half right.
Since the 2004 agreement, the Oklahoma Tax Commission has sent Big Blue more than $4.4 million in rebates. Yet state figures show the company’s job count is the same today as it was before the deal was signed
I would say both IBM and HP are in the great Race to the Bottom.
Executives love CHURN
A key concept here for Corporate America is CHURN. Executives want CHURN in order to reduce labor costs. CHURN is firing people out of one side of the company - usually those that have been there the longest and accrued better salaries and benefits - and hiring cheaper, desperate, subservient workers on the other side, possibly indirectly through outsourcing and contracting.
Why would any smart American want to enter a field with such poor job security and awful long term career prospects?
As for HP, I personally will avoid buying any of their products. No HP PCs. No HP printers. No HP anything!
Race to the bottom..
First, you skim off all the profits. Then you declare bankruptcy and have the taxpayers assume the liability for all of your debt. What's not to love?