Almost 3,500 British jobs are to be axed by computer firm Hewlett Packard

The company, which had already announced it was going to sack 24,600 workers worldwide, had been expected to sack staff when it took over UK based EDS in May.

It is sacking more than 20% of the 15,000 EDS employees in Britain. This is 10% higher than the union's worst fears.

EDS staff are based at various sites across Britain including London, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Glasgow, Sheffield and Swansea. As well as having a number of high-profile Whitehall contracts, it also works for Transport for London in developing the Oyster card and redesigning computer services for Scottish and Newcastle brewery.

A statement from the company said: "Based on local legal requirements and consultations with the HP and EDS works councils and employee representatives, HP expects that the number of positions impacted for UK is up to 3,378. Where possible we will redeploy impacted individuals."

---