HP confirms layoffs of 27,000 team members

Confirming previous rumors, HP announced plans to lay off 27,000 team members, or eight percent of its total worldwide workforce, even as its quarterly financial report beat estimates.

HP has now confirmed that the PC maker will be laying off a large fraction of its team members. The company announced today that it will be sending 27,000 of its employees out to find another job. That number represents about eight percent of its total workforce; a few days ago, rumors had HP laying off 25,000 team members.

The layoffs won't come all at once. HP said that it will take up to October 2014 to complete the layoffs. The company claims it will save $3.5 billion with this move; some HP workers will be given early retirement offers.

In a separate press release, HP announced that for the first quarter of 2012, it generated revenues of $30.7 billion for the three month time period. That's compared to $31.4 billion in revenues for the same time period a year ago. However, those numbers actually beat estimates from financial analysts.

The company is still trying to recover from its dismal 2011 (HP TouchPad, anyone?). Former eBay head Meg Whitman was brought in as HP's new CEO and President in September 2011 to try to set things right. The company is hoping Windows 8 is a big hit for not just its desktops and notebooks but from a new tablet lineup; we posted up a rough render of such a Windows 8 tablet from HP a few weeks ago.