Thread regarding IBM layoffs

Good morning, folks. I'm a 37-year-old IBM-US attorney. After reviewing the plurality of claims here, I'll be straight with you. It doesn't look good. So flip a coin, perhaps a page. But keep your heads up, good luck, and may God bless IBM.

no, I am the OP and it's true, so many trolls on this board, it's happening

Ibmers are so gullible. OP here. I made this up to see how you would react. So easy to troll you.

@3fqq - RD stands for "Redeployment" and it means that your job is now at another location. In the past this has meant: "report to your new work location next week, and if you choose not to report, it will be considered a voluntary resignation." And, of course, that means you will NOT receive the EXTREMELY generous "Separation Package" of one whole month of pay! 🙄

Re-deployment is very real at lest in EMEA. We hear from colleagues in marketing for example many are let hanging in the air, with marketing hiring frozen, no valid alternatives in marketing area. They are given some small tasks to help local team with execution, while workload is crazy for the rest of team that stayed in the sliced model.

RD stands for redeployment, I imagine. It’s a legit thing…

For WH at least, can confirm.

WTF is RD? I can't keep track of all the acronyms IBM has for layoffs - RA, PIP, now RD.

This was the original plan for 2020. BU's and numbers have been planned since 2019. Due to covid IBM was only able to make 25% of the planned RA. I truly am an FLM, (TSS) and have been hearing the echos from my team around this post. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is happening. God bless, and best of luck to those who will be called on Thurs.

"Don't get caught playing pocket pool."

Imagine an actual IBM HR person using this phrase. Only boomer losers in sales talk like this.

Oh yes we are. Get your head out of your tookus . Been a long time coming we were planning pre pandemic and then pumped the brakes. Also Kyndryl has no bearing. Those numbers were baked in long before hard spin. Wake up sheeples. It's hitting the fan in 48.

Again, total BS. No, IBM is not firing 50% of the NA workforce

I'm also in HR and will clarify. As @2pcz wrote, 22k will be RAed. But another 16k will be RA2ed, aka RDed. So 38K in NA. Also, RD will not get the usual 90 day 1 month plan. Everyone should be prepared. Don't get caught playing pocket pool.

So is it 38k worldwide in 2 waves?

Which BU ?
Software or Consulting or Systems (Power/Storage/Mainframe)

We need more help in Data & AI with attrition .. So no way there is going to be any RA in Data & AI. (I hope so)

I work in HR and OP is correct but the number is 22k NA only. Good luck!

I think the OP may have slipped a decimal point ... a 3,800 head layoff is always a possibility in any given quarter at IBM. 🤔

This is a rumor site. You'll get rumors.

It's up to the OP to provide enough details to make it sound as a possibility.

This thread does not sound like a possiblity.

But, hey. Is a RA possibility? Heck yeah. Is a 40K NA RA a possiblity? Heck no.

It is amazing the amount of cr-p posted here.

But I guess that is true of most social media.

Take anything you see here with a grain of salt.

TSS, GBS and SW to be majority of exits. Good luck!!

I think there will be a RA.

I think the number presented is way too high.

If there is any truth to this, then we will know very soon! :))

A few comments:

• number sounds high, unless it includes some major divestment and/or counts some known losses (e.g. WH)

• WARN act often can be avoided by keeping numbers at a given location below the threshold and also being careful about the rolling three month window. IBM has been clever about this in the past.

• The famous $8B loss was largely a paper loss in the way pensions were accounted for, not a real (cash flow or asset write-down) loss. Nonetheless, the company was a bloated, bureaucratic, ineffective mess at the time. As it is today.

So my guess - no better than anybody else's - is some significant divestment (storage h/w?), along with a bunch of widespread pruning in every organization. I expect some of that pruning to be middle management given that my FLM just put his house on the market and is moving to a non-IBM city...

FLM here, OP is a little aggressive on number but spot on with timeline told to target 25%

No opinion true or false. Seems like if true, however, AK would have to make some big announcement about the company strategy around the same time. Shortly before or after. Not just try and sweep it under the rug and hide from wall street and media.

2unz You are much closer to the pin than most who have commented here. It’s all about pursuing higher margins. When it comes to manpower, IBM already knows they are playing in a “niche” market. Thus reducing commodity skills to pursue NICHE skills. Ask yourself how many “expert” skills exist worldwide when it comes to knowing mainframe, Redhat, and AI combined. That’s where IBM is heading, and they will enhance their high margin offerings to get there while partnering out their low margin offerings. Remember IBM’s overhead is incredibly high, so their future business plan is ALL ABOUT THE MARGINS, and reducing commodity head count

Could this be the next step in separation from Kyndryl? While people went over to Kyndryl, many continue to work for IBM as contractors.

Glad to be done with this BS

Whatever helps you sleep

No where does that say it’s replacing NA staff in India. They are struggling with seriously high attrition rates in India. This article is nothing more than them trying to solve for that problem.

It's true folks 38k out in NA and 14k in at new sites in India by year end https://www.news18.com/amp/news/india/ibm-goes-beyond-metro-cities-to-tap-into-larger-talent-pool-meet-client-requirements-5008381.html

Nah, unsupported

Fyi, if you read Gerstner's book you'll know he did not in fact lay off all those people it was both the CEO before him and himself. Also you guys forget, IBM had MASSIVE losses ($8B) just before then not just some trickling disappointments. It was literally the only way to keep IBM alive at the time since they spent so many years pampering boomers with love and luxury (and silent gen). -No offense, but it's certainly true.

Please downvote this post so other people realize that it's a shitpost.

The claim is not supported, we do not have any background, given how it's written we do not even know if the poster works for IBM.

It's good for us to discuss this, it's been a while since we had a good RA discussion.

I think this scenario is superunlikely and the number is so large it'd would destroy the company.

See page 15, we have 282K employees globally as of the end of 2021:
https://www.ibm.com/annualreport/assets/downloads/IBM_Annual_Report_2021.pdf

We do not disclose how much is in the states, i'd probably say about 1/3. So, let's say 70K.

It'd be crazy to eliminate 30K or 40K, that's 50% of the entire workforce in the USA. Who will do the work and there is a ton of work.

This is certainly impossible. The numbers are not there.

i don't know if this is related but i'm in hybrid cloud research and everyone on my team is being asked to do a writeup on how our project(s) could be used by any ibm products. basically being asked to justify what we're doing

We do have one piece of info that management has already commented on which seems to apply. Management confirmed during the analyst call for 1st q, that WH sale revenue (approx 1 billion) would be applied to “stranded” costs. That implies that some of the 38k mentioned in the original post are leaving via a selloff vs a layoff. My guess is there are other non-strategic portions of IBM who will be leaving under non-RA terms also. If IBM is truly going back to their roots (enterprise), and shifting to AI, LINUX, SW, and Hybrid then Thursday will be more than just an RA announcement. Gerstner trimmed IBM from 400k to 220k over two years while completely changing IBM’s go to market strategy. Perhaps AK is using the same template to change strategy again, BUT he is starting from a lower total number 350k.

its okay everyone... biden said they will have enough immigrants to replace all of us soon.

Is there even enough money allocated to workforce restructuring to make this feasible?