It happened fast.
One day, the gleaming 440,000-square-foot campus in Spring was the crown jewel of the Texas tech scene, and the next, it was the center of a "structural cost management" storm. For anyone living near City Place or commuting up I-45, the news of hewlett packard layoffs houston didn't just feel like a corporate headline. It felt like a shift in the local weather.
Honestly, the situation is a bit tangled because there isn't just one "Hewlett Packard" anymore. You have Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)—the big fish that moved its global headquarters to the Houston area in 2022—and HP Inc., the guys who make the printers and laptops. Both have been slashing heads recently, but for very different reasons.
The $350 Million Squeeze at HPE
In March 2025, HPE’s CEO Antonio Neri dropped the hammer during a first-quarter earnings call. He basically admitted the company could have "executed better" after a messy transition in the server market.
The plan? Cut 5% of the global workforce.
That’s roughly 2,500 people. While the company has been quiet about exactly how many desks in Spring are now empty, they employ over 2,000 people locally. You do the math.
HPE is currently wrestling with what they call "inventory indigestion." They had a mountain of older server stock sitting around right when everyone and their mother decided they only wanted the newest Nvidia Blackwell GPUs for AI. To clear the old stuff, they had to offer massive discounts, which nuked their profit margins.
Why Houston is Feeling the Burn
When a company moves its headquarters to a new city, there's usually a "honeymoon phase" of hiring. We saw that in 2022 and 2023. But now, the reality of fiscal 2026 is hitting.
HPE’s CFO, Marie Myers, hasn't sugarcoated it. Between the costs of integrating the $14 billion Juniper Networks acquisition and the looming threat of import tariffs from Mexico—where a lot of their hardware is assembled—the company is leaning into what they call "AI agents" to do the work humans used to do.
They’ve literally been working with Deloitte to build AI bots that handle executive reporting. These bots are reportedly 50% faster at closing the books. If you’re a mid-level finance manager in Houston right now, that’s a scary statistic.
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The "Future Ready" Purge at HP Inc.
Meanwhile, over at HP Inc., things are arguably even more aggressive. They are in the middle of a massive "Future Ready" transformation.
That’s corporate-speak for cutting up to 6,000 jobs by the end of 2025 and 2028. Just this past November, right around Thanksgiving, they announced another wave of cuts focused on "AI transformation."
- The Goal: Save $1 billion a year.
- The Reality: 10% of the company is being shown the door.
- The Tech: Shift from traditional PC support to "AI PCs" and automated customer service.
It's a weird irony. Houston fought hard to get these tech giants to move here, offering tax breaks and incentives. Now, the very technology they are building—Artificial Intelligence—is the reason they need fewer people in those fancy office buildings.
Is This a "Tech Winter" for Spring, Texas?
Not exactly. It’s more of a recalibration.
While the hewlett packard layoffs houston are painful, HPE is still betting the farm on the Spring campus. They aren't leaving. They are just becoming "leaner." The problem for the local economy is that a "lean" headquarters doesn't buy as many lunches at the local restaurants or support the same level of real estate demand.
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If you look at the numbers, the layoffs are spread out through fiscal year 2026. This isn't a one-day "everyone grab your boxes" event. It’s a slow bleed of attrition and targeted cuts.
What You Should Do If You're Affected
If you’ve been caught in these rounds or feel the wind blowing that way, don’t wait for the next quarterly call to start moving.
Update your internal portfolio. HPE is obsessed with "AI use cases" right now. If you can show you know how to use their internal AI tools or the new Juniper networking tech, you’re much harder to cut.
Watch the "AI PC" space. For those on the HP Inc. side, the company is pivoting hard toward hardware that can run LLMs (Large Language Models) locally. If your skills are stuck in traditional hardware support, it’s time to pivot to edge computing and AI integration.
Leverage the Houston network. The silver lining? Houston’s tech scene is actually diversifying. Just because the HP campus is trimming doesn't mean the energy-tech or medical-tech sectors in the TMC aren't hiring.
The era of the "safe" corporate job at a legacy tech giant is basically over. Whether it’s tariffs, AI bots, or just bad inventory management, the workforce in Spring is learning that being a "headquarters city" comes with a lot of volatility.
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Keep an eye on the fiscal 2026 Q2 reports. If those server margins don't bounce back after the Blackwell transition, we might see a second wave of "adjustments" before the year is out.