Job Cuts : Employees say IBM may cut thousands of jobs this month

[DerekLeung]

Updated: 7th January 2009, 0650 hrs
Employees say IBM may cut thousands of jobs this month

Tech firm IBM may cut thousands of jobs this month amid the global economic slowdown.

That’s according to the employee group, “Alliance for IBM”, an organization that’s seeking union recognition at the firm.

Employees have been hearing that layoffs will take place in January and the size of the reduction may be larger than those in the past few years.

As many as 16 thousand jobs may be cut.

IBM is the biggest technology employer with some 386 thousand employees at the end of 2007.

 

[Godot]

IBM has never been truely successful in whatever it did. They had to sell off their subsidaries in order to barely survive in the past.

 

[2lanu]

IBM has never been truely successful in whatever it did. They had to sell off their subsidaries in order to barely survive in the past.

You sure know what you are saying?

 

[Godot]

Lets see.

IBM had to sell off their whole hard disk drive subsidary to Hitachi because they could not maintain the company.

Their thinkpad and thinkcentre computers subsidaries got sold off to Lenovo.

There are probably more that they sold off.

If they are truely so great then these money making subsidaries would not be sold off in the first place.

 

[The_Latest_H]

IBM has never been truely successful in whatever it did. They had to sell off their subsidaries in order to barely survive in the past.

They have been successful ever since they started their in-house creativity process. The issue here is that IBM's strategy for expansion has always included layoffs, even during the good times.

And then they have followed Jack Welch's strategy of cutting out those businesses that don't earn money, and buying up companies which earn money, merging them into the parent company to strengthen the brand. And in each of these actions, they have sacked people, trim bureaucracy and installing new management, and re-negotiating union agreements with the respective unions in issues like annual leave, pensions, health-care coverage and wages. Some of these smaller companies which have been eaten up actually have no unionised workforce, making it easier for IBM HR to negotiate with these workers.

So IBM's decisions to sell off unprofitable subsidiaries, to buy up profitable ones were also taken during good times when they were profitable, and thus improving the business rankings.

In the end, its about priming the pot so that the IBM empire can remain profitable at a maximum level, while still keeping wages, and other costs down.

 

[johnny333]

IBM has never been truely successful in whatever it did. They had to sell off their subsidaries in order to barely survive in the past.

To see how successful a company is must take a look at their share prices.

IBM & HP are blue chip & made some money buying & selling IBM/HP shares. Its Dell which is hopeless. Made very little from Dell shares.

 

[Godot]

Like any business, they should have been in it for the long run.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (formerly IBM hard disk drive company) is making a lot of profit, but 5 years ago, when it was still under IBM, it was making record losses.

In fact, All of Hitachi's earnings over the past few years still could not make up for the years of losses under IBM.

 

[The_Latest_H]

Like any business, they should have been in it for the long run.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (formerly IBM hard disk drive company) is making a lot of profit, but 5 years ago, when it was still under IBM, it was making record losses.

In fact, All of Hitachi's earnings over the past few years still could not make up for the years of losses under IBM.

That's why IBM sold it off; it was a drag on the IBM profitability, and was probably viewed as by management as difficult to manage. So if you can't manage it well, then sell to another company which has the proven record of turning things around.

In the end IBM focused on its core industries and delivered on them. Those which couldn't, were sold off. And because of that IBM is successful. They have been praised many times on CNBC, particularly by conservative journalists within CNBC and by Fox as well. And shareholders got maximum dividends too because of this strategy of IBM following the template set by GE CEO Welch.

 

[Wobble]

actually...grapevine is..12,000 will lose their jobs once they return from CNY hols....

 

[DerekLeung]

Layoff rumours surround IBM

08.01.2009

While employees at the Dell plant in Limerick wait to hear about the future of their jobs, technology giant IBM is also garnering attention as unconfirmed rumours circulate concerning potentially huge global layoffs.

Concern over worldwide jobs at IBM began when IBM officials confirmed on Monday that independent contractor employees had been let go, with spokesperson Jeff Couture adding that this included cleaning, admin and security staff.

While these jobs were on independent contracts, an IBM employee site, Alliance IBM – which is not affiliated with IBM – has comments posted to its site claiming that Big Blue may lay off as many as 16,000 employees at the end of the month.

A company spokesperson told siliconrepublic.com that IBM “does not comment on rumours and speculation”.

One commentator on the Alliance site said: “My manager is involved in the layoff planning in our division (part of the technology group). He told me the numbers in our division were going to be very large, a lot larger than what the other managers were expecting.

“Nobody wants to fear-monger, but the layoffs are coming. I used to be in management (I got better), and I can see the familiar patterns here (sudden movements of people they are cherry-picking to protect, the way denials are given, the acceleration of the review process so they have the lambs lined up, etc).”

With over 386,000 employees worldwide, 16,000 job cuts would represent roughly 4pc of IBM’s workforce. These rumours come ahead of the firm’s fourth-quarter 2008 earnings, which are expected to be released at the end of January.

By Marie Boran

Pictured: IBM Spain headquarters in Madrid