SAN FRANCISCO -- Beleaguered Hewlett-Packard isn't through slashing its workforce. The tech giant plans to cut 2,000 more jobs on top of the 27,000 it announced a few months ago.

The venerable Silicon Valley company says it now plans to cut 29,000 jobs by October 2014, according to a regulatory filing.

In May, HP said it would slash 27,000 jobs, or 8% of its worldwide workforce, in hopes of saving billions and reversing a financial funk amid brutal competition.

The additional cuts come a month after HP suffered the biggest loss in its 73-year history.

HP had no comment. But more people than expected have opted for early retirement from the company, easing layoffs of younger workers, according to a person familiar with HP's plans, who declined to speak on the record because he is not authorized to do so.

News of the latest cutbacks sent HP shares up 14 cents to close at $17.43.

The multiyear restructuring plan is "absolutely critical for the long-term success of the company," CEO Meg Whitman said in a conference call in May. Last month, she said HP is in the "early stages of a turnaround."

HP is eviscerating thousands of jobs because its revenue and profits are fading. The Palo Alto, Calif., company reported a loss, factoring in accounting charges, of $8.9 billion for its fiscal third quarter, which ended July 31, compared with a profit of $1.9 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue was $29.7 billion, down 5% from the same period a year ago.

The company's revenue is being squeezed by a phalanx of competition from Dell, Apple, IBM and others on multiple product fronts. The projected slackening demand for PCs this summer won't help matters, nor will HP's lack of a tablet strategy.

The steady beat of bad news not only threatens to further deflate worker morale but could greatly compromise HP's recruitment efforts, analysts say.

"How many more" of these layoffs are HP employees "going to be subject to?" says Jonathan Yarmis, an analyst at HfS Research. "When does it stop? We don't know where the bottom is and, we fear, neither does HP."

The massive workforce reduction is believed to be the third-largest in tech history. IBM slashed 60,000 jobs in mid-1993, and AT&T laid off 40,000 in early 1996, according to analyst Phil Fersht of HfS Research.

USA Today