So, HP is going to lay off 9,000 employees? Doesn’t that sound terrible for New Mexico, given that they’ve just opened a support center here? Well, don’t worry; it’s not as bad as the headlines make it sound.
First, we’re talking about reducing positions through attrition over the next three years, not a massive round of layoffs.
Second, these are almost all data center positions. It’s interesting how data centers are increasingly becoming empty of humans, evoking images of Skynet. But Albuquerque isn’t (so far) big in the data center business, with perhaps the limited exception of BigByte. Put simply, it’s a little hot here to locate large-scale data centers. So we’re not losing these positions, either.
Third, HP simultaneously will create some 6,000 new positions over the same next three years, which means there’s more shuffling than terminating going on.
I predict zero impact in New Mexico from this announcement. Don’t sweat it.