The announcement by the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate, surprising in its sharpness and scope, reflected a growing trend by European companies to emulate the cutbacks made by big American companies like General Motors, I.B.M. and AT&T in the 1990's to become more efficient and more profitable. Company officials announced the changes as Unilever reported that profits fell 5 percent last year. ''Europe hasn't gone through the mega-downsizings we've seen in the United States,'' said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based job-placement company that tracks American layoff trends. The Europeans, Mr. Challenger said, ''are kind of following the same path as we move into the global marketplace; they've got to compete against U.S. companies that have made these changes.'' The Unilever job cuts amount to 10 percent of the company's global work force and the cost of the cuts in employment and factory closings will total $5 billion.