Hewlett Packard has announced it is cutting 24,600 jobs worldwide over the next three years.
This is about 7.5% of the company's global workforce.
The company employs around 4,000 people in Ireland, with staff in Leixlip, Dublin, Galway and Belfast.
A spokeswoman for HP Ireland said it has no knowledge of how many, if any, jobs will go in Ireland as a result of the global cuts.
No numbers had been set for any country, she added. But about half of the cuts are expected to take place in the US. Layoffs will be weighed toward newly acquired company EDS.
HP bought Texas-based, business services outsourcing titan EDS last month as part of a €10bn deal that aimed to create a global powerhouse in computer services to compete against IBM.
By reducing its workforce HP is aiming to 'streamline the combined company's services businesses,' and once complete is expected to 'result in annual cost savings of approximately $1.8bn,' the company says in a statement.
It said the job cuts are expected to allow the tech firm to restructure the EDS business group to streamline costs, invest in growth and drive shareholder value.
HP says merging resources with EDS is part of an ongoing evolution from a computer hardware company to a firm that combines hardware, software and services.
'Redundant' posts to go - HP
'HP has a strong track record of making acquisitions and integrating them to capture leading market positions,' said CEO Mark Hurd. 'HP now has the broadest technology capabilities in the market to meet customer needs today and in the future,' he added.
HP said it is eliminating 'redundant' positions in departments such as accounting, human resources, and legal, and plans to hire about 12,000 engineers in the coming three years.
HP has annual revenues of more than €26bn, and as of August reported having 178,000 employees. It operates in more than 80 countries.
It is the world's largest IT company, with massive data centres and experience in business computing hardware that analysts said would mesh well with the expertise EDS has in outsourcing technical services for companies.
The acquisition more than doubles HP's outsourcing services business, which will be aggressively marketed particularly in Europe and the Americas, company officials have said.
EDS was founded by Ross Perot, who became a billionaire and US presidential candidate, by paying an incorporation fee of €700 and buying unused computer time at an insurance company to process data for other firms, according to a company history.
