IBM Is Latest Tech Giant To Cut Jobs in Midst of Pandemic (bloomberg.com) 33
IBM cut an unspecified number of jobs across the U.S., eliminating employees in at least five states. The company declined to comment on the total number, but the workforce reductions appear far-reaching. From a report: "IBM's work in a highly competitive marketplace requires flexibility to constantly add high-value skills to our workforce. While we always consider the current environment, IBM's workforce decisions are in the interest of the long-term health of our business," company spokesman Ed Barbini said Thursday in a statement. "Recognizing the unique and difficult situation this business decision may create for some of our employees, IBM is offering subsidized medical coverage to all affected U.S. employees through June 2021." Based on a review of IBM internal communications on the Slack corporate messaging service, the number of affected employees is likely to be in the thousands, said a North Carolina-based worker who lost his job along with his entire team of 12. "This was far ranging -- and historical employment ratings, age and seniority did not seem to matter," he said. The person asked not to be identified on concern that speaking publicly may impact his severance package.
Paraphrased: never let a good pandemic go to waste (Score:5, Insightful)
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IBM just got a new CEO this year, so some cuts were expected as the new CEO realigns the company to fit his "vision".
It would be interesting to know which businesses are cutting. The new CEO used to be the head of their cloud business, so I doubt that any cuts will be made there.
But what about Blockchain, IoT and Watson/AI . . . ? These are all things where IBM invested, but are they working out . . . ?
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I guess the "vision" includes importing foreign , lower wage workers.
Don't even try to argue they are more qualified.
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It would be interesting to know which businesses are cutting.
If they follow previous layoffs it will be any business where the majority of the staff have seniority that leads to high paychecks and a load of benefits. As in most of corporate America today, the ethos that only executives can be well paid has overtaken IBM as well.
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Changing Tunes (Score:2, Insightful)
But we don’t live in a total bubble and eventually tech jobs will contract, especially those that sell applications or services to the companies which are more heavily effected. Fra
Re:Changing Tunes (Score:5, Insightful)
So far I'm very thankful that this has mostly been an inconvenience for my wife and me too. But, it's just a few business/budgetary decisions from where we are to unemployment if this keeps up for too long.
One of the new guys on my team previously worked on software that supported the health insurance industry and half of his former team was laid off. My wife's hospital has furloughed or laid off most of the medical staff that supports elective surgeries, doctors and management still on staff are taking hefty pay cuts. When I had to take one of my children in to the ER a couple month's back right as the lockdown started a friend of mine who is a nurse in the ER there told me that their traffic was down to 1/4 to 1/3 of what it normally is.
How long before all the tech people who support those hospitals or the insurance companies start to see their jobs cut? How many other industries are going through the same issues?
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"I wonder if people around here will start to move a little more towards reopening the economy when itâ(TM)s their jobs that start to disappear."
Only if they succumb to a false dichotomy. There are other options, like government relief for citizens instead of corporations - which will achieve both goals since people will spend the money.
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Quiz: Where does the government get its money from?
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The U.S. dollar is inflationary and this is partly by design since it does serve as
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There's no evidence here that these IBM job cuts are related to the pandemic and they'd have occured either with or without it.
Because of course they did (Score:5, Funny)
How many years has it been since IBM was in the news for anything besides firing people? Did they buy Red Hat because they were running out of their own people to fire? Is IBM even in any other business besides firing people? Maybe they should repurpose the company as a consultancy for companies that want to fire lots of people? If IBM still has expertise in anything, it's firing people. They might as well capitalize on it.
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Firing people is a short term method to cut expenses and thus raise stock prices. So this is announced widely especially if it's just before an earnings report. In the other hand, hiring more people doesn't raise your stock price or your short term profits and so it isn't announced and people don't hear about that as often if it does happen. For a company the size of IBM there are thousands of hirings and firings in a year that won't be reported on in any press.
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Did IBM buy Red Hat? Or did Red Hat buy IBM? (Score:1)
Re:Did IBM buy Red Hat? Or did Red Hat buy IBM? (Score:4, Interesting)
RedHat assimilating IBM would be the best thing to happen to IBM. They are that big boulder in the river that is slowly but surely eroding away from the water rushing around it. I used to work for a division of IBM, and I know first-hand how they grind everything good within their structure to the point where eventually the good departs and all that is left is mediocrity or worse.
IBM is offering subsidized medical coverage (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: IBM is offering subsidized medical coverage (Score:4, Informative)
"IBM is offering subsidized medical coverage to all affected U.S. employees through June 2021"
How nice of them!! Truly a humane and caring company.
Oh, wait, I have that FOR FREE from the Ontario provincial government, so I don't have to rely on the goodwill of a corporation to pay for my medical bills IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC.
To be fair, it isn't "free" in that it is paid for by Ontario residents by way of taxation. Calculated as part of your provincial taxes, for Ontario on Form ON428 line 81, it gets included on your T1 line number 42800.
So it isn't really something provided by "them" the government, rather it is something collectively provided by "us", albeit organized and administered by the government.
I do agree that this is a much saner way of providing for health services compared to tying it directly to employment.
Too much information? (Score:2)
said a North Carolina-based worker who lost his job along with his entire team of 12. "This was far ranging -- and historical employment ratings, age and seniority did not seem to matter," he said. The person asked not to be identified on concern that speaking publicly may impact his severance package.
I hope there are a lot of teams with 12 members who were let go together. Otherwise his anonymity isn't that strong.
"age and seniority did not seem to matter" (Score:1)
age didn't matter because they already fired all the old people. scum.
Who is getting laid off? (Score:2)
Ageism (Score:5, Interesting)
They finally got my ex-father-in-law. He's 70, and had worked for IBM since the late 90s as a bigwig VP in Global Services, after a long career at StorageTek and PepsiCo. He didn't want to retire yet, but wasn't given any choice about it.
He was the last of a generation, being a self-taught computer guy who never went to college. He used to brag that they ran all of Pepsi in the 70s on a mainframe with 128k of RAM, and he regularly schooled programmers half his age who never learned how to flowchart and design a program properly.
It's next to impossible to have a career like that anymore. Best wishes, sir.
- Necron69
Did they ever stop? (Score:2)
Did IBM ever stop laying people off? We need a display of "_ Days Since Last IBM Layoff". Maybe a second one for Intel, another company and constantly breathes employees in and out with the phases of the moon.
Hopefully, the feds will stop their contracts (Score:2)
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