EDS axe hits Sydney's Burwood

The Australian division of HP-owned IT outsourcing giant EDS is in the process of retrenching staff at a facility in Burwood, Sydney, according to several sources.

Crikey today reported in its 'tips and rumours' section that several hundred staff in the area had lost their jobs on Monday. The information correlated with anonymous tips ZDNet.com.au has received pinpointing the area as a target for the outsourcer.

An EDS Australia spokesperson did not confirm the redundancies, and denied the Crikey tipster's claim that one retrenched staff member "punched his manager's lights out before police were called and he was arrested".

Hewlett-Packard and EDS expected to cut about 7.5 per cent out of their combined Australian workforce over the next three years as part of the global rationalisation following their marriage earlier this year according to a spokesperson for EDS' local division speaking last week.

Locally, the two have employed a combined workforce of around 6,000 staff, with a 7.5 per cent hit meaning approximately 450 jobs would be at risk, according to ZDNet.com.au calculations