Hewlett Packard Enterprise to slash 10% of global workforce, putting 5,000 out of a job

US technology giant Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is reportedly set to slash 10% of its global workforce – with at least 5,000 job to go by Christmas.

The move, first reported by Bloomberg, was described by one internal source as an effort to reduce company costs as competition in the IT industry grows. The international firm sells corporate tech services and products including servers, cybersecurity and storage.

But it is now facing heightened competition from cloud computing businesses including Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google.

Reports indicate that cuts at the company – which has approximately 50,000 staffers – will not only impact staff in the US, where it is headquartered, but also other countries across the world.

It comes as the company reportedly seeks to make $1.5bn in savings over the next three years.

Since 2015, when HPE was founded following a split with Hewlett-Packard (HP), its chief executive officer (CEO) Meg Whitman has been working to cut costs.

Key sections of the business were shuttered or restructured in order to stay ahead of the curve, including legacy services, printers and some software units.

In June, a memo from Whitman – seen by The Register – touted the next steps for the IT giant.

It said that a new initiative called "HPE Next" would be introduced to "clean-sheet our operating model and organisational structure to simplify and improve how we work".

"We're going to review all of the processes of the company, as well as the accountabilities, to see where we can be more agile," the CEO wrote. "We will look at how we can prioritise investments in growth areas and capabilities that set us up for the future."

Quite what the business will transform into remains unknown, but it is becoming clear that not all of the current workforce will be around to find out.

Under mounting pressure, Whitman recently said that HPE aims to cut "layers" and become a more efficient business that will ultimately be "simpler, nimbler and faster".

In an interview with CNBC in June 2017, the CEO asserted that by the end of the year shareholders would see growth, adding that the company was now "almost all the way through probably one of the largest transformations in American business history".

Much remains known about the current plans to slash jobs – and the firm is yet to open up about the matter. HPE did not immediately respond to a request for comment from IBTimes UK.