Latest tech layoffs: HP cuts workforce in India

With job cuts continuing to ripple through the global IT workforce, it may be a good time to be thinking about expanding your profile of certifications. Anything that makes you potentially more valuable to your current employer — or potentially more attractive to the next one — is probably a worthwhile investment.

HP is the latest large-scale tech employer to pass out pink slips, with several hundred workers in India now in search of their next IT opportunity. The cuts were made as part of a previously anounced program of targeted reductions. In total, HP reportedly hopes to cut between 40,000 and 50,000 jobs from its global tally of more than 317,000 by the end of fiscal 2015.

HP is far from alone in 2014, with several other prominent IT employers taking aim at similar targets. Earlier this month, Cisco announced its intention to cut 6,000 jobs, marking the networking equipment maker's fourth year in a row of trimming the company payroll. In 2013, Cisco slimmed down by 4,000 jobs, with 1,300 employees out of work in 2012, and another 6,500 shown to the door in 2011.

In July, Microsoft made the biggest "slash splash" to date, announcing plans to cut 18,000 jobs over a one-year period. Many of those layoffs were part and parcel of Microsoft's acquisition of Finnish IT giant Nokia, but about one-third of the job cuts targeted employees whose tenure at Microsoft predated the Nokia merger.

Juniper Networks, NetApp, IBM and Dell are among the other IT firms to announce layoffs since the calendar rolled over to 2014.