The only regions where RAs are hitting right now is Europe, because IBM finally got approvals from the works councils to let go of people. In the US and Canada, there is already nobody left except for executives. So there is nobody left to RA. Instead they are doing “bench management” across Services, the area with the most bloat, where if you aren’t billing to a client you are PIPed after 30 days and RAed after 60 days. God forbid IBM ever cut the executive ranks who aren’t selling, or the bloated offshore teams who aren’t billing to clients because of the lack of business.
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GTS never stopped laying people off, especially on the LTS and contractor side.
OP - Your post seems a bit off base.
I personally know over 50 IBMers in Services in North America. They are not being benched but most expect an RA soon.
I agree with you On your current assessment of IBM. (NA, vs Europe, vs Asia). Europe has far tougher laws when it comes to RA’s vs NA, and as such we are only reading about what is in the public domain in Europe. NA has been manpowered to a skeleton crew over the last few years, so again you are correct that there are just very few folks to go RA. PIP is easy to measure, and doing it via bench management makes it easy for IBM to set the cut line. NOTE PIP’s are definitely going on in NA even as we speak. Getting the “spreadsheet junkies, exec’s, and higher level management teams” to an RA status is almost impossible within IBM due to the command structure that Armonk has put in place. Look for a selloff/spinoff to dump those excessive heads out of IBM as they transition to the REDHAT implementation. IBM has telegraphed this move to the street via their “April” re-org warning