HP cuts another 1300 UK jobs

HP will slash a further 1,300 jobs from its operations in the United Kingdom, adding to the 900 jobs it said it would cut by October as part of a mass global headcount cull.

The job cuts continued HP's withdrawal from the UK, with the vendor's main union, Unite, noting that the latest round of cuts brought its total to 4,000 over the past two years.

"These job cuts mainly involve the export of jobs to HP locations outside the UK," the union said in a statement Monday, suggesting the jobs would go to India.

The cuts were part of its plan to "transform HP's enterprise services" business, HP said in a statement issued to local media.

Unite said that its Indian arm - Unite of India - was also launching a "decency at work" campaign in response to pay and benefits cuts leading to increased stress.

"IT employees in India are complaining about the stress caused by tremendous pressure to live up to unreasonable targets and deadlines," Peter Skyte, Unite national officer, said in a statement.

The cull came as the UK Government signaled that it may audit government IT contracts valued over 100 million pounds following a scathing review released yesterday by Top Shop owner, Sir Philip Green.

HP became one of the UK's largest IT service suppliers after it acquired Texan IT services giant Electronic Data Services (EDS) in 2008.

According to UK government technology news site, Kable, HP inherited an EDS contract with Department for Work and Pensions that netted it £656.9m (AU$1.05 billion) last financial year.

HP told investors in June that it would slash 9,000 jobs from its global workforce of 340,000 in the hope of generate between US$500 million (A$596 million) and US$700 million (A$835 million) in net savings by the end of fiscal 2013.

While HP has revealed job cuts in Europe and the US, the company remained tight-lipped on Australian losses.

However, staff at HP's Australian services division - formerly EDS - have alleged that cuts numbering the hundreds were being made, while the company confirmed it was cutting salaries as part of its integration of EDS.