HP: Jobs Cuts Imminent? (Updated)

Back in February, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman said on the company's post-earnings conference call with the Street that that company's cost structure was not sustainable. She said at the time that HP needed to "save to invest," and "save to grow." As I wrote in a post, the commentary sounded like a pretty clear warning that the company is going to have to do a significant round of layoffs.

Well, we're getting close to HP's next earnings report. The company will report April quarter results next Wednesday. Could there be some more concrete news on cost-cutting moves?

Business Insider is reporting that "layoffs are about to hit HP." The story asserts that the company wants to reduce headcount by 10%-15%, which would mean a huge number of job cuts, given an employee base of 324,600 people. The story says some of the cuts would come in the form of an early retirement program. The story says the HP services staff will be hit harder than manufacturing.

HP isn't commenting.

HPQ this morning is up 3 cents at $22.06.

Update: Bloomberg reports that the company is considering cutting as many as 25,000 jobs, including 10,000-15,000 from the enterprise service group.