HP expects to lay off 4,000 to 6,000 people over the next three years under a restructuring the company says is intended to make it faster on its feet while lowering costs. Revealed alongside quarterly earnings, the cuts are part of a larger recalibration in big tech as automation spills from back-office work to product development and customer-facing roles.
AI Redefines HP Workforce Plan and Operations
Executives are positioning the plan as a shift to AI-assisted operations — from smarter customer support and service workflows to software engineering and product design. It also plans to roll out tools that simplify ticket resolution, speed up code generation, and improve supply chain performance, according to the company’s earnings call and investor presentation. Leadership has made clear that efficiencies from those systems will decrease the need for certain positions but create openings in jobs tied to AI, data, and next-generation PC experiences.
Scope and Departments Affected by HP Job Cuts
Cuts will mostly come from product development, internal operations, and customer support. In practical terms, that might mean streamlining overlapping teams, stricter vendor management, or modifying support centers to rely more heavily on AI-first triage. HP said the goal is to keep or improve its customer satisfaction scores, even as it cuts back on headcount — an objective other large tech firms have chased by adding AI on top of human-staffed escalation paths.
As of HP’s most recent update, it had roughly 58,000 employees around the world. Purported cuts would constitute about 7–10% of the staff, depending on actual counts and attrition. The company said some cuts would be gradual and would be offset by hiring in priority areas, including those where AI and automation will require new skills.
Savings Targets and Costs of Restructuring
HP anticipates approximately $1 billion in gross savings by the end of the plan. To help achieve those goals, it is assuming about $650 million of restructuring and labor-related costs, including roughly $250 million in the midway year. We can do some back-of-the-envelope math to get a sense of what the savings goal would mean: It likely translates into something like $170,000 to $250,000 in cumulative cost savings per position impacted over the life of this plan — a combination of reductions in salary and overhead and process changes.
Operating profit in the PC segment was $2.6 billion, down 1% YOY, and printing delivered $4.3 billion, down 11% YOY.
That divide underscores where HP will probably hew to: high-end and corporate PCs, peripherals, and software-enabled services associated with managing devices and security — while paring down parts of the print portfolio under pressure from slowing office volumes and shifting consumer behavior.
A Recurring Playbook in HP Restructuring Moves
This is not HP’s first major restructuring in recent years. The company eliminated 9,000 positions in 2019 and announced a plan to eliminate 4,000 to 6,000 jobs in 2022. The pace implies a disciplined, if painful, approach to rightsizing as markets evolve and new technologies make it possible to do work with fewer people. When momentum around execution is steady and when savings are being visibly invested into growth categories, investors tend to reward such plans.
Market Context and Competitive Pressures for HP
Industry analysts at IDC and Gartner have pointed to two forces reshaping HP’s central businesses: a PC market recovery that is both gradual in nature and driven by device refresh cycles, along with the emergence of so-called “AI PCs,” as well as secular headwinds in print from a decline in workplace pages. In such a setting, scaling AI capabilities across service, logistics, and engineering becomes a differentiator — by lowering warranty costs, reducing time-to-market, and improving attach rates for services.
HP’s move comes at a time when tech companies are increasingly laying off workers as they try to better automate their businesses and keep costs in check. A series of updates from big peers — including double-digit headcount reductions at a major chipmaker and thousands of roles cut at cloud and telecom leaders — illustrate how pervasive AI-driven restructurings have become. The common through line: fewer layers, quicker cycle times, and a pivot to roles that directly build or oversee intelligent systems.
What to Watch Next as HP Executes Its Cost Plan
Employees and investors will be listening for clues in the speed of cash outlays for severance, the balance between layoffs and attrition, and signs of reskilling initiatives that redeploy talent to AI-heavy functions. Customer metrics — the first-contact resolution, the net promoter score, and device reliability — will tell whether automation ultimately improves or ruins service quality.
If HP uses these savings to expedite AI capabilities in commercial PCs, invest in higher-value device management software, and support durable revenue pools in print and services, it may come out the other end slimmer but stronger. The downside, as with all deep cuts, is losing crucial know-how and hobbling innovation. For the years ahead, execution — not just intent — will decide whether this restructuring results in sustained gains.
