IBM today issued redundancy notices to close to 1,700 employees in the US, and it is expected that total job losses in the latest swathe of job cuts in the company’s Global Business Services unit could reach 4,000 to 5,000 later this week.
The move comes a month after 5,000 jobs were cut in January and February.
An independent site run by existing and past IBM workers called Alliance@IBM has said that at least 4,000 workers at IBM’s Global Business Services unit will learn their fate this Thursday, as it appears their jobs will be outsourced to India.
The Global Business Services unit generates some US$20bn worth of revenue for IBM every year.
This latest round of job cuts will bring the number of people laid off by IBM since the start of the year to 10,000.
The move has drawn criticism from unions in the US because IBM is one of a number of large US companies hoping to get stimulus money from the coffers of President Barack Obama under his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
By John Kennedy
