Hewlett-Packard, the multinational information technology corporation, have announced they are slashing 934 permanent roles from its 16,500-strong UK workforce. However, they have chosen to retain almost 2,000 temporary staff and contractors.
The technology giant announced the cull as part of the company’s plans to cut 9,000 jobs worldwide and further job losses should be expected.
Although good news for IT contractors, this has angered the union Unite, which represents the permanent employees.
Peter Skyte, Unite national officer for IT and communications, said: “This is a further cull by Hewlett Packard of its skilled and experienced UK workforce, and follows nearly 4,000 jobs being cut over the past two years. The move undermines the coalition government view that the private sector will fuel job growth out of the economic recession”.
Many technology companies like HP choose to retain temps and contractors over permanent staff so that they have a more flexible workforce says Adrian Treacy, Director of specialist IT recruiter Arrows Group.
“Recruiting contractors is also the ideal way to get access to very niche skills, which are impossible to teach a permanent employee in a short period of time – there are many freelance IT professionals whose careers are focused on plugging their niche skill set into a series of short-term projects and who can therefore provide invaluable input.”
