Hitachi Data Systems is to axe 400 employees, 14.5 per cent of its worldwide workforce. The cuts will be applied across HDS, the company said, but details of how the cuts will affect individual territories has not been revealed. HDS has offices in 31 countries. The company blamed changing market conditions. "We are changing because the global marketplace is changing," said CEO Yoshihiru Koshimizu. HDS is a joint venture between Hitachi and EDS. Revenues for the fiscal year ending 31 March 1996 were $1.6 billion. In September, Hitachi announced a series of redundancies resulting from the slump in the semiconductor market. ®