IBM begins laying off staff
There have been any number of recent announcements regarding technology sector layoffs. Further bad economic news has arrived with news that IBM is also now laying off employees.
Microsoft has recently laid off a significant number of employees, as have Yahoo, Intel, AT&T, and a host of others. Now, according to a CNET news story, IBM has now begun the process of staff reductions. The new IBM layoffs apparently began a few days ago in a number of IBM’s North American offices. The company has not as yet made any announcement about these layoffs, and apparently are not answering questions about the matter.
Rumors are rampant, though, about the scope of the layoffs at the computer and services giant. The facts are not totally clear, though it seems that more than 2,800 employees have been laid off from IBM’s software, and sales and distribution divisions. These statistics come from Alliance@IBM, a Communications Workers of America affiliate group which is attempting to organize some IBM workers into a labor union.
A representative from the labor group has told the Poughkeepsie (NY) Journal that it believes that IBM will continue to cut jobs at its software, and sales and distribution facilities in Poughkeepsie and East Fishkill, NY, and Burlington, Vt., this week. A series of comments on the Alliance@IBM site indicate that cuts have already been made in Toronto. In addition, a spokesman for IBM Canada confirmed late on Friday that IBM is indeed in the process of laying off employees, according to an industry news report.
These are large numbers of employees to be separated from an IBM workforce already reduced by years of downsizing and restructuring by the former hardware behemoth. Somehow, it does not seem like a complete technology sector recession until IBM is involved. Although it has been kept quiet for several days, an announcement is likely from IBM now that so much is already known. It seems like an important nail in the tech recession structure has now been driven home.
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January 26th, 2009
Anyone hoping for a quick, mild recession is going to be disappointed, I’m afraid.