Big company, big cuts
IBM building in Baltimore
News of impending layoffs at IBM leaked yesterday, but the official numbers weren’t confirmed until today. IBM says it is cutting 5,000 jobs in the United States. Hopefully their severance packages are big enough that they won’t need short term loans to get by.
Headed for the door
Yesterday, 600 IT specialists in the Global Business Systems unit were laid off. According to Information Week, IBM cut a total of 1,674 jobs from Global Business Systems.
“In an effort to rebalance skills, eliminate redundancies, and deliver greater economic efficiencies, IBM Global Business Services is announcing a resource action affecting U.S. employees in Application Services,” the document says.
Other cuts
Among the other layoffs, IBM is axing 53 partners in the Security and Privacy Services group, dozens of IT architects, sales specialists, managing consultants, systems analysts, and financial analysts.
In January, IBM cut 4,000 jobs.
All in the name of outsourcing?
IBM is cutting U.S. workers in favor of shipping jobs over to India, according to CNBC. While IBM has been eliminating jobs in the United States, it has hired more workers in “Brazil, China, Eastern Europe and other countries and regions where salaries are low compared to U.S. standards and where growth prospects exceed those of the sluggish North American market,” according to Information Week.
IBM doing well
You might expect that a company laying off thousands of workers is floundering, but this is not the case with IBM. When its financial quarter ended in January, IBM reported net income of $4.4 billion, or $3.28 a share, on revenue of $27 billion.
“IBM has been riding out the global recession better than most of its peers and it continues to pay a healthy dividend to investors,” says Information Week.
Obama on outsourcing
In his online town hall meeting today, Obama was asked whether he will bring jobs that have been outsourced back to the United States. He replied that the low-wage, low-skill jobs will probably not come back.
We’ve got to go after the high-skill, high-wage jobs of the future. … What we’ve got to do is create new jobs that can’t be outsourced,” Obama said.
Outsourcing does some good. It brings jobs and industry and the means to alleviate poverty to people of nations that might not have the chance to do so. If that were the sole aim of a company, then it is something I would support. However, outsourcing is done typically when the bottom line of a larger corporation is threatened, in other words when the security and wealth of the executive branch is threatened. There is no altruism in casting off workers to preserve a few people’s ability to have multimillion dollar offices, Oriental rugs, and ivory back scratchers.
All of the denials and other mis-information by IBM is a lie. I worked there as a consultant for 3 years and was asked to train Brazilian Nationals to take over our work. After the “training period” was over, our entire group was let go. Their help desk is all outsourced to India. I am first and foremost an American Citizen that will remain in the US. It is sad and disgraceful when American Companies want Americans to buy their goods and services, but will not employ Americans to work for them
NEW IBM MOTTO…BETTER FASTER CHEAPER, IBM IS SENDING JOBS, OVERSEAS TO INDIA, MANILA, PHILIPINES, NEGRON,ETC,ETC. ITS ALL ABOUT CORPORATE GREED..HOW MANY BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ DOES ONE COMPANY NEED. NOW THE LAID US ALL OFF NATION WIDE. THE IBM EXECS ARE FAT AND HAPPY…WHILE WE ARE LIKE LAMBS LED TO THE SLAUGTHER HOUSE. MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON THERE SOULS!