HP is firing 24,600 employees following its acquisition of EDS to “streamline the combined company’s services businesses.”

While roughly half the job-cuts will come in the U.S., the remaining will be spread over several other countries and is sure to impact India too.

The guillotine will drop on both EDS and HP employees.

We don’t know the precise number of Indian employees to be thrown under the train. But remember that both HP and EDS have massive operations in India with several thousand employees each.

For both companies, India is a major hub of operation because of easy availability of coolie labor.

Last time we checked, HP had 29,000+ employees in 42 locations in India while EDS had some 28,000 employees there.

So we estimate that several thousand HP and EDS employees in India will have to kiss their jobs goodbye.

HP hopes to save $1.8 billion annually by throwing the 24,600 employees overboard.

HP said Monday that it would take a charge of $1.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 relating to the restructuring.

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