Five months ago, Hewlett-Packard announced that they will be acquiring Electronic Data Systems Corporation, a global business and technology services company. When HP went public with the information, Wall Street expected that the purchase would have quite an impact on the company’s work force, giving rise to numerous job cuts.

Nevertheless, the number of layoffs that was released Monday by HP is beyond what anyone might have surmised. Over the next three years, the company intends to reduce their work force by 8%, rendering 24,600 people (of a total of 320,000 for the combined company) unemployed. Hewlett Packard Company CEO Mark Hurd stated that approximately half of the jobs would be in the United States, but added that he plans to eventually replace the positions with jobs in other departments. The targeted areas are finance, human resources and legal departments, due mainly to the fact that within the combined company, tasks might coincide.

The job cuts are expected to save the company $1.8 billion per year, while the acquisition of EDS is said to begin adding to HP’s net profit in 2010, according to HP Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak.

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Hewlett-Packard is the largest seller of personal computers worldwide, according to reports issued in January, 2008 by market research firms Gartner and IDC. Moreover, it is the fifth largest software company in the world. In 2007, it became the first IT company in history to reach revenue exceeding $100 billion.

On May 13, 2008, Hewlett-Packard said they had clinched a deal to buy Electronic Data Systems Corporation for $13,9 billion, the purchase being finalized on August 26, 2008.