Hewlett-Packard (HP) plans to cut 7.5 per cent of its work force, or 24,600 jobs, as it attempts to realise savings from its recent acquisition of Electronic Data Systems, the technology outsourcing group.

The printers group said it will carry out the cuts over the next three years, while replacing about half the jobs in new areas of its services business. It announced the plan ahead of a meeting with Wall Street analysts to detail the merger plans.

Nearly half the job reductions will take place in the US, the California-based company said. EDS was headquartered in Plano, Texas, near Dallas.

HP said it will take a charge of $1.7 billion in the fourth quarter ending in October. Accounting for goodwill will cost $1.4 billion, while the cost of the restructuring will involve another $300 million.

HP estimated $1.8 billion in annual cost savings once the three-year cost-cutting programme is completed.

“We are good at integrating companies ... I believe we will do it well,” Mark Hurd, chairman and chief executive, said.

When the $13.2 billion merger of computer services provider EDS with HP was announced in May, Hewlett-Packard counted 178,000 employees on its books and EDS had 142,000 employees.

The deal closed last month and HP hopes the move will allow it to compete more aggressively with IBM, the world’s biggest computer services company.

Hewlett-Packard said most of the cuts would focus on eliminating overlapping jobs at EDS in functions such as legal, accounting, information technology and human resources.

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