IBM begins mass-firing one third of its workforce

Following the January announcement that IBM would be laying off staff at its Global Technology Services (GTS) department, the company has begun a widespread elimination of its employees. The company has begun to fire approximately one-third of its workforce in the United States as part of its “massive” job cuts, expanding beyond the GTS department.

The news broke from the Facebook group, WatchingIBM, with members posting their accounts of the slash and burn policy IBM has. One employee wrote, “I am a GTS Strategic Outsourcing casualty of the mass firing today. My manager told me it was big and widespread, and I'd be hearing from a lot of people that will also be notified today.”

As of 2015, IBM reportedly had 378,000 employees worldwide and stated it hired just as many positions as it lost. Its new strategy shifted focus to cloud computing services and as a result, it hired 70,000 new employees in areas to vastly help its new direction. IBM also claims it has 25,000 current open positions.

But looking at the other side, the same amount of people were fired, and now it appears that a larger number will also be sacked following the latest round of cuts. While the exact number of employees who will lose their jobs is uncertain, it could also affect workers in the UK as the company warned 1,300 GTS workers they were at risk.

Adding to the affected employees, IBM revealed it would only be offering one month’s severance pay instead of its prior policy allotting six months. It’s also rumored that many roles within the company are being dispersed out to locations, such as Brazil and India, where the workforce is cheaper. Several of the fired employees claim they were actually training those individuals, only to watch their jobs be handed to them.

IBM is not alone in making severe job cuts. VMware and NetApp have also laid off a large number of employees over the past few weeks.

Source: International Business Times