HP slashes nearly 3,400 UK jobs

 

Gallery

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 8 Oct 2008 at 17:25

HP has told union officials that 3,378 jobs will cut in the UK, as it attempts to integrate its new acquisition EDS.

The EDS job cuts will take place over the next two years, and are part of a wider strategy to axe 24,600 jobs globally and cut costs.

EDS has major contracts with a number of Government departments, including the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Defence, and UK IT union PCS has warned delivery of public services could be affected by the cuts.

"Our worst fears have been confirmed. We feared 3,000 job losses for the UK, and the figure is even higher," says PCS national officer for EDS Jim Hanson. "For the last 18 months we have already seen job cuts in EDS with a voluntary redundancy exercise already in progress.

Hanson claimed the union had not been consulted prior to the cuts: "It is disappointing that these figures have been made public before we have discussed how they have been arrived at."

EDS currently has around 15,000 staff in the UK.