HP adds 2000 more to chopping block

HP has increased the total number of planned job cuts by 2000 over the next two years as it tries to kickstart growth, accounting for more than 29,000 employees in total.

The company, which will cut jobs through a combination of involuntary cuts and early retirement offers, expects to take charges of about $US3.3 billion ($A3.19 billion) through the end of its 2014 fiscal year for the workforce reductions, it said in a regulatory filing on Monday.

The company also expects to take another $387 million in charges relating to data centers and real estate consolidation.

The world's No. 1 personal computer maker, which employs more than 300,000 people globally, has begun a multi-year restructuring aimed at focusing the sprawling company on services targeted at corporations.

Chief executive Meg Whitman, who took the top job last September, is trying to move the company past the internal upheaval that marked 2011, including the departure of two previous chief executives.

HP will likely have cut 11,500 jobs by end of fiscal 2012, the company has said.

(Reporting By Poornima Gupta; editing by Andrew Hay)