Around 4,200 employees at the Irish operations of HP, the technology company formerly called Hewlett-Packard, will be told within days whether some of them will be made redundant following its merger with Compaq.

Management at HP's European operations said yesterday that 5,900 jobs from a total of 46,000 in Europe would be cut in the integration process, a fall of almost 13 per cent in the region.

This is just below the global figure for job cuts of 15 per cent or some 15,000 staff announced by HP during the merger process last year. But it is unlikely the company's operations here will remain completely unaffected.

An HP Ireland spokeswoman said a "business by business review" of the firm's operations was almost complete and final job figures would be released within a few days.

Technology analysts believe the impact of the job cuts in the Republic may be somewhat cushioned due to the small amount of overlap in the firm's operations.

HP's technology campus in Leixlip is based around the manufacture of ink cartridges while Compaq had a high level of technology service functions here.

But overlapping positions in finance, administration and marketing functions may be vulnerable in the shake-up of the firm.

The head of HP Germany, Mr Heribert Schmitz, said final figures would be announced at the end of next week, but the group "hopes, where possible, to implement the job cuts without redundancies".

Mr Schmitz said the job shedding was necessary to make the new merged company more competitive. He said the German units of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq would be merged into a new entity- HP Germany - after the current business year ends on October 31st.

He declined to say how many jobs might be on the line in Germany alone, where Hewlett-Packard employs 5,900 and Compaq 2,600. - (Additional reporting AFP)