IBM Stops Disclosing US Headcount Data 377
theodp writes "ComputerWorld reports that IBM has stopped providing breakouts on US employees, closing a door to data that provided insights into the bellwether company's employment shift. In its latest Annual Report, Big Blue only provides its global headcount, and an IBM spokesman confirmed that disclosure of US headcount is a thing of the past. The Rochester Institute of Technology's Ron Hira called the US workforce data critical for policymakers trying to understand the dynamics of offshoring. 'By hiding its offshoring, IBM is doing a disservice to America — through omission the company is providing misleading labor market signals and information to policy makers,' Hira said. Ironically, CEO Sam Palmisano's Letter to Shareholders, which accompanied the Annual Report, touts how IBM's Analytics and 'Smarter Planet' efforts are empowering US government decision-makers. Nondisclosure domestically and abroad seems to be the new rule of thumb for Big Tech, sparking calls for government intervention." IBM laid off about 10,000 US workers last year, and 2,900 so far this year, according to the Alliance@IBM, a labor union.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wow. Offshoring... (Score:2, Informative)
America is exploiting these countries? Try again ass monkey, corporations are.
Re:Misleading signals? (Score:3, Informative)
Other than that, I would say it is a truth in advertising issue. Corporations lie a lot.
Speaking as an IBMer... (Score:5, Informative)
We're projected to have more Indian employees than American in the next year or two. We already have over 100k in India, and we're ramping up in Argentina and Brazil.
Meanwhile, internal outsourcing has been an absolute mess. Our Indian-based helpdesks are reviled, both inside IBM and by our customers who use them. Indian technical resources are likewise extremely difficult to work with, and it has nothing to do with language or timezones - they refuse to speak up (from what we're told, "it's cultural", meaning don't make an issue of it or you'll get sent to sensitivity training). A solution can be completely wrong - as in, the contract says we were supposed to start work two months in the past or numbers literally don't add up, yet they won't question blatant errors, and won't respond if you question them. Apparently questioning someone else is deeply frowned upon, and makes them next to useless as anything but strict, brainless order takers. They have no initiative whatsoever, and seemingly no capability of independent creative thought. Maybe it's "cultural", maybe it's poor training - I don't know. I do know it's not working, but all executive management sees is that they cost a fraction to hire as western workers. You get what you pay for, and all that...
None of this applies to the many Indians I work with who are based in other geographies. But for whatever reason, Indians in India are just extremely poor replacements for western workers.
Re:Speaking as an IBMer... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:4, Informative)
Labor at IBM is unionized?
No, actually it isn't. The union mentioned in the article has been trying for the last 10 years or so, mostly unsuccessfully.
Numbers (Score:5, Informative)
IBM U.S. labor force numbers.
2009: 105,000
2008: 115,000
2007: 121,000
2006: 127,000
2005: 133,789
Where IBM hired in 2009:
Asia/Pacific: 13,376
CEEMEA: 3,988
Europe: 2,923
India: 18,873
Japan: 868
Latin America: 7,112
USA: 3,514
Canada: 820
Here are the detailed numbers from the IBM March 1st, 2010 layoffs (2,901 cut so far)
STG Technology Development: 24
STG Sales Support: 80
CIO Application and infrastructure: 160
Software Group WPLC: 50
Software Group Information management: 99
GBS Global Account: 98
GTS Security Systems: 41
ITD Transition, Quality & Service Mgmt: 276
ITD Application Hosting and Database: 158
ITD Service Management Delivery: 66
ITD Storage Management: 178
ITD Distributed Server Management: 318
ITD SSO (IDMM): 120
GTS North America East IMT Region Maintenance & Technical Support: 66
Sales and Distribution Headquarters: 73
ITD Complex Engagement Services: 34
Tivoli: 51
SWG Application & Integration Middleware: 119
ITD Shared Services, Security & Risk Management: 216
Sales and Distribution Global Sales: 57
Human Resources Global Administration: 124
STG Global markets: 12
CIO Client Value Tranformation: 76
Corporate Marketing & Communications: 48
CIO Operations & Enterprise Portfolio Management: 8
STG Software Development & Lab services: 39
GBS Financial Services: 24
GBS AIS: 84
GBS ASAA: 202
Total cut so far: 2901
Source: http://www.endicottalliance.org/ [endicottalliance.org]
Re:Open Source is also a driver (Score:5, Informative)
No, he didn't say that at all. He said that he has an easier time finding open-source expertise offshore. I find that to be a highly dubious claim, however. IME as an embedded Linux engineer and long-time Linux fan, I've found that most Linux expertise is found in industrialized Western nations, mainly the USA and western Europe. There's very little in India or China. Remember, in those countries, people aren't very idealistic about things like software licenses and such, they really just chase after the money, and they don't care about pirating MSDN or whatever.
Just look at the names of all the contributors to the Linux kernel and other open-source projects. Most of them are European and American. I have seen more and more interest in Linux with Indians recently, however.
If he had said he has an easier time finding open-source expertise in Europe, that I could believe. But since he also remarked that Europe was even more expensive than America, I don't think that's what he meant at all. Now, if he had said he has an easier time finding people who claim to have open-source expertise offshore, but in reality are completely incompetent, that I would believe. I've seen an unbelievable amount of outright lying on resumes with people from the east.
there are a number of comments (Score:5, Informative)
under my grandparent comment, from actual ibmers, verifying my description of their action plan to simply leave the usa
additionally, i am a good friend of midlevel manager who used to work for ibm in the hudson valley. he actually still does work ibm. he's in bangalore
ibm is gutting itself in the usa and reconstituting itself in india
good for india. but how is that not a betrayal of the usa in your mind?
Corporations are mandated to do this. (Score:4, Informative)
It's old news but it should be stressed that corporations are legally obligated toward their shareholders to maximize profits, and this leads to countless sad and ironic situations like this one. Corporations are thus legally obligated to use lobbyists to bend laws, corporations are obligated to outsource jobs even if those are currently held by shareholders themselves, corporations are obligated to maximize externalities which usually wreaks havoc on the environment, etc. Hell, assuming that releasing their headcounts would hurt their business (as it would!), they are basically legally obligated not to do so.
That is totally fucked up and backwards, plain and simple. Like American drug laws, it seems inconceivable that any group of reasonable legislators would ever design this current system. We have historical quirks and abuses to thanks for this.
Re:Unions aren't the problem (Score:2, Informative)
There appears to be a compelling argument that industry dogma by PHBs is choking the industry.
If that is the case, then unions could actually be a key part to restructuring things to every-bodies benefit.
Not saying it's true, just that it is possible, though you are most likely correct, that with a global economy any change or massive negotiation is likely to lead to just shipping jobs to other countries.
Re:Unions (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If you have nothing to hide... (Score:1, Informative)
Typical /. speculation with high, undeserved, levels of confidence expressed (and rewarded by typically ignorant moderators).
A company's top executives and board of directors often have access to quite a bit of knowledge that is not known to the public. This is not illegal. In fact, if keeping this knowledge secret is in the best interests of the company, then arguably they have a fiduciary duty to maintain the secrecy of the knowledge.
That's not as big of a deal as you'd think. Anyone who is the beneficial owner (directly or indirectly) of 10% or more of a company's stock, or who is a director or officer of the company that issued the stock, has to file ownership reports with the SEC. 35 U.S.C. Sec. 78p(a) [cornell.edu]. Outside investors may not have access to all the information that these key insiders have. However, outside investors can easily find out how many shares each insider has and whether the key insiders are buying or selling shares. Take a look [morningstar.com].
Re:Globalization and Capitalism for you not them (Score:3, Informative)
I think the big problem with publicly traded companies is that the shareholders demand an increased return no matter what. If you, the CEO, won't outsource to India, they'll vote you out and hire someone who will. It won't be a long search because a few million a year can cause people to do a lot of less-than-ethical things.
Also, another problem is that companies want to remain American, with all of the benefits of being an American corporation, but none of the responsibilities. That is, they don't want to follow US law in other countries. We need to pass a law saying that all corporations who employ foreign workers should be forced to pay them at least a minimum wage as already defined by the Department of Labor. If that means that Indian call center workers are living like kings, so be it.
It's expensive to outsource to other countries. If you have 1,000 workers making a dollar an hour, you'll be spending at least $1,000 an hour for the workers. But they have to have equipment like phones and maybe computers, so go ahead and buy those too. And an IT department to service those electronics. And infrastructure to power the place and provide communications. Oh, taxes, land, a building, complying with safety codes and local regulations, etc. There are a lot of 'hidden' costs associated with outsourcing overseas that aren't often considered.
In order to fix the problem, we have to make it more profitable for American companies to do business in America. We could do this by lowering their costs to bring work here, or we could do this by raising their costs to do work elsewhere. I vote for the latter. Perhaps every man-hour of work done overseas must follow minimum wage laws here, with the difference being paid to the US Government?
Re:Umm, so what? (Score:3, Informative)
If you are a US citizen as you claimed to be, you would not have required a visa (L or whatever) to work in US
Duh, no kidding; That was exactly why they wouldn't hire me - they couldn't send me to the US on a visa to get around minimum wage.