Employees at Hewlett-Packard's Singapore office expressed surprise on Tuesday at news that the US giant will be splitting into two listed companies.

They were also concerned if the break-up would spell job cuts from the company's operations here.

The company had announced in 2012 that it would cut 27,000 jobs, a number that was increased to 50,000 in June and 55.000 on Monday.

"The announcement (on Monday) was broad and we are left hanging in terms of what will happen to the operations of individual countries, as well as which business segments job cuts will be in," said an employee who wanted to be known only as Adrian.

Another employee said she heard of the news this morning 10am through a company-wide conference call. "Even if there are job cuts I'm not too worried. From my experience, the company would give us enough time to find a new job. There have also been cases where one department might let go a person, but he is hired by another department," she added.