Scotland was in the firing line on Thursday as Hewlett-Packard announced its intention to cut 5,700 jobs across Europe over the next two years in response to worsening market conditions.

The largest technology company in the world said last week that it was planning to reduce group headcount by a further 2 per cent, or about 6,400 jobs, on top of a 26,000 company-wide redundancy programme announced last year.