HP cuts 650 jobs in Scotland's ‘Silicon Glen’

LONDON: The world's biggest printer and computer maker, Hewlett-Packard Co.,

on Thursday said it would cut 650 jobs at its factory in Erskine, Scotland,

dealing a further blow to the high-tech region known as "Silicon

Glen."

The Scottish layoffs are part of efforts to achieve cost savings of $3

billion after the $18.7 billion merger of Hewlett Packard and Compaq earlier

this year.

HP has said it will cut 5,900 jobs in Europe out of a total of 15,000 cuts

worldwide. On Thursday it said 1,580 jobs would go in Britain. A Hewlett-Packard

spokeswoman declined to say where else European jobs would be lost.

About 450 permanent employees face redundancy at the Erskine computer plant

south west of Glasgow, along with almost 200 temporary staff -leaving a

permanent work force of about 900. The spokeswoman said Scottish staff would be

given the chance to retrain for work in other parts of the company.

The layoffs come after Compaq announced 700 jobs losses at the Erskine plant

in April last year. The HP cuts mark one of the worst blows to hit Silicon Glen

- the 50 mile(80 km) corridor between Edinburgh and Glasgow set up from the

1960s onwards as cheap wages and government grants attracted high-tech companies

to Scotland.

Many of these businesses have cut back investment in new technology and laid

off staff since the technology boom ended in the run up to 2000. The worst blow

came last year when US mobile phone giant Motorola said it would shutter its

mobile phone plant on the outskirts of Edinburgh, with the expected loss of over

3,000 jobs.

"This is another nail in the coffin of Silicon Glen and is bad news for

the Scottish economy," Danny Carrigan of the Amicus union said of the HP

layoffs. "We must stem the tide of manufacturing jobs being lost."

The combined HP-Compaq work force numbers 150,000 worldwide. Post-merger

layoffs were expected as the new company pushed for cost savings in the face of

a global downturn in technology spending and increased competition in the

personal computer market.

(C) Reuters Limited.