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Speculation about HP grows
(Columbian, The (Vancouver, WA) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 9--Hewlett-Packard, one of the county's top employers, could be positioning itself for an eventual departure from Vancouver.
Its 174-acre campus and all of the buildings at 18110 S.E. 34th St. are for sale. Staffing has fallen by possibly as much as 500 workers in the past three years. Former employees say opportunities for advancement have dwindled.
And in the past 30 days, more employees have been told they will be laid off if they can't find work elsewhere in the company.
Officials at HP's corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., won't respond to questions about staffing levels and say the real estate moves will strengthen, not weaken, operations. HP has operated in Vancouver since the late 1970s. Its facilities here are considered the birthplace of the company's inkjet printer technology.
"They remain today, still, a major employer, both in terms of job count and importance to the community," said Bart Phillips, president of the Columbia River Economic Development Council. "I know nothing about the company's plans, but I'm definitely skeptical about speculation that they're leaving."
Much of what is happening at HP's Vancouver campus, where inkjet printers are designed and marketed, has been hidden from the community since 2005, when the company instituted strict rules about communicating with the media and other outsiders.
HP's jobs have long been among the highest-paying in Clark County. Through attrition, early retirement packages and now layoffs, the company appears to have cut staff across a number of divisions, including marketing, engineering, human resources and administration.
Speculation is running rampant among current and former HP employees, especially following news that the company may cut as many as 400 jobs at its sister site in Corvallis, Ore.
Planned cuts
In November 2005, Mark Hurd, HP chief executive officer, announced plans to reduce employment companywide by 15,300. That 10 percent workforce reduction was largely complete by Oct. 31, 2006, according to company financial documents.
Vancouver employees were not immune to those cuts or to an early 2007 initiative to reduce staffing by another 3,080 companywide through early retirements.
But the reductions in Vancouver appear to have been deeper than the average, largely because of attrition.
"As far as I know, there were not a lot of layoffs," said a former engineer who left about a year ago. "But they weren't replacing people. When one person transferred to another division outside of this HP office, the company would not replace the person."
Some of the reductions were rational, money-saving efforts, said the engineer, who asked not to be named because of conditions of a retirement package.
"Before Carly Fiorina was CEO, this was a very decentralized company. When she was there, the company started consolidating operations such as finance and human resources," the engineer said. "And when Mark Hurd came in, this continued."
Engineering and marketing
Many Vancouver workers now feel that HP's growth plans center around computer programs and business support packages, and that there are fewer opportunities for inkjet printer engineers to advance within the company, this former employee said.
HP's printing and imaging division, of which Vancouver is a part, generated revenues of $28.4 billion in 2007, 27 percent of the company's sales, according to corporate financial reports. But the inkjets that are Vancouver's specialty are a shrinking share of that total, as the division branches out into large-format printing products, develops digital cameras and associated products, and sells managed print services for business.
"People see the trends and are leaving," the engineer said.
Now some workers who did not depart voluntarily are being told they will have to leave, according to an HP employee who works in marketing. A number of people with marketing jobs in Vancouver, Corvallis and other printing and imaging division offices have been told that they have a month to find work elsewhere in the company or be laid off, she said.
"They're calling it a redeployment, not layoffs," the employee said.
At a recent meeting, a manager took questions from workers about the staffing cuts.
The manager did not provide numbers about how many jobs will be eliminated, the marketing employee said. "But when some people said they had heard that a third of the people on staff would be let go, the manager said that was not accurate, it's less than a third."
Hewlett-Packard has not released employment figures in Vancouver since 2005, when 1,800 people worked at the site.
When Hurd visited Vancouver in 2006, internal company communications said that he visited with about 800 employees. Not all employees would have been on shift at that time, said the marketing employee, who speculated that staffing is now down significantly, though still above 1,000.
"I would guess it's 1,300 to 1,500," said the engineer, who left a year ago.
Consolidating offices
In July 2006, HP announced a companywide effort to reduce real estate costs by consolidating several hundred locations worldwide to fewer core sites. In 2007, the company's real estate review found that too much of HP's Vancouver building space was going unused. HP once employed 3,300 people here, many in manufacturing. Printer manufacturing was discontinued in 1999. With no more manufacturing on site and total employment down, the company decided to completely vacate Building 1, one of six structures that comprise 694,000 square feet on the campus.
In December, HP decided to put the property on the market, with the aim of selling the campus and leasing back space, according to an internal memo sent to employees by Renee Leach, HP's director for real estate and workplace services.
"Once the sale goes through, we will lease back square-footage from the new owner and continue with HP business operations 'as usual' for the foreseeable future with the required changes associated with being one of several tenants sharing this site," Leach wrote. "� Similar sale and lease-back options have taken place at other HP sites globally."
HP is still in the process of vacating Building 1, said Emma McCulloch, corporate spokeswoman.
"These changes will help HP achieve long-term cost efficiencies while ensuring that HP Vancouver, Washington, operations are able to continue as usual," McCulloch said in an e-mail.
The future
Though HP officials say the changes will better position Vancouver in the long-run, many speculate that these moves could be the beginning of the end for local operations. As HP consolidates, it may choose to combine printing and imaging operations, which are dispersed in Vancouver, Boise, Corvallis, and outside the region.
The Corvallis Gazette-Times reported Wednesday that HP will shut down a manufacturing line on its campus, eliminating 300 to 400 jobs. The company also recently announced that it will allow Oregon State University there to use an 80,000-square-foot building for 20 years at no charge.
The Idaho Statesman reported on Monday that HP's third Northwest printing and imaging site in Boise, where about 3,500 people work, may also make cuts. Several people claiming to be HP Boise employees have posted anonymous online comments saying that they have been informed of impending layoffs. Another online commenter said that more cuts will be announced in June.
"We are communicating directly with our employees," McCulloch said, though she declined to further comment on the speculation.
The Vancouver marketing employee said she does not believe the official statement that recent changes will ensure the health of HP in Vancouver.
In February, HP officials told The Columbian that the company's Building 1 was available for rent, not for sale, despite a decision two months earlier to market the entire campus to buyers.
"They outright lied about the building being for sale," the marketing employee said. "I would believe anonymous sources before I believed the officials.
To see more of The Columbian, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.columbian.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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