Even companies doing relatively well must keep the tightest control on costs in the prevailing climate, and Hewlett-Packard Co is offering a voluntary severance-incentive programme to employees in some job categories, and looks for about 2,700 employees to leave in early 1993, about 2,000 of them in the US. It will take a hit of about $0.40 per share in the fourth quarter to October 31, to cover the costs of the redundancy programme and related plant consolidations.
