Thread regarding Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) layoffs

Cheap labor

Chasing after cheap Labor will continue with all American companies. Corporate greed and the desire to to constantly fill the bank accounts of shareholders is the very driving force for this. America is addicted to this easy money and companies will not stop the practice as long as there are is cheaper labor in any part of the planet. Those of us in the US workforce must adapt to this new reality and find our own survival mechanisms, such as learning new trades that cannot be easily transferred overseas. It is becoming more and and more a dog eat dog world.

Sadly, this is our reality now, and @OmCRssQ-1smr is right. There is nothing we can do to change it, other than be proactive in learning a new trade that can't be outsourced.

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| 2001 views | | 7 replies (last August 5, 2017) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+Oqw0dUV

7 replies (most recent on top)

HPE can black-list you from future re-hire at HPE, and it does so, even for you working for a contractor. HP blacklist (before it split to HPE and HP Inc) is used by both companies... Not sure about DXE. If you were laid off by HP Inc post-split then your HP Inc blacklist cannot be applied to HPE, and vice versa. Otherwise, if busted (clearly caught red-handed doing this kind of thing, and you can prove it), they'd be in serious troubles! This is monopoly-type of behavior to do this! Ditto, they'd be in serious legal troubles if, say, IBM and HPE and Dell got together to share a common "blacklist". And you can prove it, of course. Nothing is a crime if you are not caught!

I think that an astute lawyer could bust HPE for age discrimination based on the internal-to-HPE blacklist, for that matter. Number of 10-year-olds on blacklist? Zero! Number of 20-year-olds? Very close to zero! Number of 30-year-olds on blacklist is middling; number of 50-year-olds is high!!! CLEARLY the older you get, the greater your chances of being blacklisted!!! Go, lawyers, go!!!!

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Post ID: @cmbq+Oqw0dUV

NOT with all companies. Big IT, or companies with board members that can't understand the importance of their IT departments will go "cheap". In the former's case, it's because they can hide offshore labor deep in contracts or bait-and-switch. In the latter's case, it's because of a fundamental lack of understanding of the impact of technology today for companies. In both cases, such companies will remain on a downward spiral or forever be lagging behind others in tech.

Some companies, particularly in the financial and medical sectors, but increasingly other traditional sectors, recognize the need to stay affluent in technology. Not everything has to be framed by existence in Silicon Valley and depend on VCs.

The company I now work for is busy hiring lots of engineers. There is certainly job security and lots of opportunity. It exists, but then again, our company won't touch Big IT, no matter how great it needs the experience and skill sets to satisfy backlogs.

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Post ID: @cjyx+Oqw0dUV

@Oqw0dUV-1kep What do you mean by (HPE's "blacklisting" of laid-off workers here in the USA)? Are you saying if you are laid off by HPE that you will not be able to get a job anywhere else?

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Post ID: @cnaw+Oqw0dUV

well, it is not only cheap labor, but also technologies. Traditional secretary jobs have been decimated by software. Ditto for tax preparation, and some paralegal jobs.

In the next 5-10 years, driving related jobs will be gone once the self-driving technology becomes prevalent.

It is up to us to stay ahead of the curve. I left HP (that is before the HPE/HPI split) when i saw where the company was going, way before they would consider laying me off. Jumping into the unknown is scary, but better than sitting inside the pot and to be boiled slowly.

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Post ID: @2hja+Oqw0dUV

Learning a new trade that can't be outsourced you say? Well how about working for a defense contractor. They're hiring ! As long as you can pass a background check or a polygraph and don't lie on the security questionnaire, then you are in position to experience a very rewarding career. For those of you getting the ax, you might want to consider it. By the way, your medical is taken care of. Unfortunately their pensions are long gone but they do offer the traditional 401K.

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Post ID: @1zpa+Oqw0dUV

What do you expect?

Today's CEOs and politicians are just an extension of the a--holes that founded this country. All men were created equal right? Except for American Indians, women, and n---ers. (in the language of the time)

The only people in this country that are truly free are the ones down on the corner asking for a handout and living under a bridge.

The rich rule this country not we the people. Always have always will.

No government program can fix healthcare either. Can't anyone see that the greed in skyrocketing medical costs is the root of the entire problem? If you pay $8000 a year in medical premiums when a single trip to the emergency room costs $10,000 then how is an insurance company supposed to make a profit if they have to cover the guy living under the bridge also? They can't! So Trumpcare will just be a different version of robbing Peter to pay Paul resulting in a large debt to be paid.

I wasn't entitled to the job I landed at HP over thirty years ago straight out of college. I wasn't entitled to a severance package either. I wasn't entitled to the optional severance I received for signing the waiver which is just a legal form of a bribe. HPE is openly laying people off based on their age and the damn government is not going to do anything about it.

I was just very, very, lucky because life isn't fair people! If you believe that it should be inside the realm of profit and loss, then you really don't understand the American way.

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Post ID: @1kep+Oqw0dUV

"There is nothing we can do to change it..."

Politicians would want to deceive us into thinking otherwise! We in the computer business would like it if the politicians "protected" us from foreign computer workers (and I do admit the the H-1B system is screwed up, when combined with HPE's "blacklisting" of laid-off workers here in the USA).

But in the bigger picture, computer workers want to be "protected" from competition, but we want to buy cheaper, better cars from overseas, when we can. Meanwhile, American auto workers would like to be "protected", but would like to buy cheaper-better computers!

When they want to throw a "beef party", then "it all depends on whose ox gets gored".

The central deceit of politics is "here we will help you by messing over the other guy", which will SOMETIMES work, but in the longer runs, gets us ALL messed over (except the politicians and lobbyists and assorted parasites). You can NOT, in the long run, profit from messing the other guy over, w/o "what comes around, goes around", snaking back to bite your back-side!

"Free trade" is good (when it is fair), because it is simply allowing people to freely trade money-goods-labor as they see fit (and, borders are artificial). Pandering politicians always make it worse, not better, when they interfere.

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Post ID: @urg+Oqw0dUV

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