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IBM Adding Almost 19,000 Jobs

cyngus writes "IBM has announced they will add 18,800 jobs worldwide in 2004. They say about a third will be in North America. I don't know how many they have added this year so far. After the new hires IBM will employ about 330,000 people worldwide." More good news for the unemployed techie. Although things are far from the halcyon days of dot-com yesteryear, it's good to see companies doing better.

41 of 386 comments (clear)

  1. You can feel it! by PeteQC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    it's good to see companies doing better

    Being an employed-almost-techie(analyst), I would say that it seems a serious trend since maybe 12-18 months that companies are making more and more investment in IT.

    Hope this will last! :)

    --
    Montreal - Best city to live in!
  2. Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here by Greg+Larkin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Based on the article summary: 18800 * 2/3 = 12533 non-US jobs

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  3. Unfortunately by AresTheImpaler · · Score: 5, Funny
    Unfortunately, they will only hire lawyers...

    /me didn't read the article, going to do now....

    1. Re:Unfortunately by MisanthropicProgram · · Score: 4, Funny
      I can just hear the political speaches now:

      "There were thousands of jobs created while I was president. Mind you, not the low paying service jobs like programmers and engineers, but high paying legal jobs: lawyers, paralegals, court stenographers, ...."

  4. Hot damn by Stevyn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I guess open source does create jobs! Well, in terms of linux support services. I think a huge area of growth is going to be people with solid knowledge and experience helping companies switch to linux and other open source software.

  5. Linux consulting jobs by SteroidMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Interesting, it appears most of the jobs are consulting related. Polish up your Linux skills boys and get those resumes up to date.

    1. Re:Linux consulting jobs by Bigger+R · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Polish up your Linux skills boys and get those resumes up to date."

      Don't you mean Finnish up?

      --
      Beta only seems to work for Google. Such a shame.
  6. college students.. by siliconwafer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hopefully some of these jobs are entry level positions for recent graduates, or internships and cooperative education positions.

  7. Welcome to the field by themusicgod1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    CS is a good idea, for the right person.
    You have to understand that a university degree is going to become a part of you, and hopefully refine talent you allready have. Once that matter becomes clear it should be a hard time convincing you why not to start a four-year degree, depending of course on how expensive it is to acquire. I pray you use something other than Microsoft Windows?

    --
    GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
  8. Re:Still sounds kinda grim. by Amiga+Lover · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Didn't they lay of 50,000 over the past 5 years? So 50,000 american jobs leave. 18,000 jobs come back, but only 6,000 american? "Lift your chin up so I can punch you in the face."

    Was it 50,000 american jobs that were lost?

  9. Quite the turnaround for IBM. by darkonc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There was a time when some people would look down on the idea of working for IBM because they seemed stuffy and out of step with the market. Now they're a hot spot for job seekers again

    --
    Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
  10. Stop the outsourcing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    They say about a third will be in North America.

    Stop outsourcing our great Indian jobs to North Americans!

    1. Re:Stop the outsourcing by nutznboltz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The true cost of outsourcing industry is that U.S. corporations have turned India and China into massive energy consumers. China especially is competing for oil which is driving the price to over $45/barrel. The crows have come home to roost as the stock market buckles under the pressure of the tighest oil market ever.

    2. Re:Stop the outsourcing by PingPongBoy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ok so by keeping the jobs in US will stop the oil demand. Somehow I doubt it. China and India are actively seeking to improve their economic status and they're willing to spend money to earn money. Hence, consumption.

      --
      Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
  11. Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here by nofx_3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Note its North America for that 1/3, not all will necessarily be in the US.
    -kaplanfx

    --
    Visualize Whirled Peas
  12. Re:Still sounds kinda grim. by geekanarchy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The significance isn't so much the amount; it's that they are hiring. Companies do not hire massive amounts of new employees if future outlook is grim. IBM obviously thinks things are going good and that the economy is done throwing up, and that's good news.

  13. Wonder years. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Okay, this is getting tiring. Why is it that every story that has the word job anywhere has to contain "dot.com hay day" of the late 90's. I know that Tech's been in a slump but it seems kind of useless to keep hanging on to that short 5 year period.

    Get over it people.

    **watches troll mods fly**

  14. I guess I'm one of them by ReidMaynard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I started a contract job @ IBM just last week, Linux cluster work. In RTP btw.

    --
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    1. Re:I guess I'm one of them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      AC because I'm not at home, and I have a new job too!

      Laid off in RTP December 2003 (Software Group (SWG) resource action). Replaced by 5-member team in IBM India. Got work again on a scientific computing project in C + Perl running on Linux.

      My friend still working for IBM in RTP reports that job postings are starting to appear in the cafeteria: "Two years programming experience, $75,000". Quite a bit of money for so little experience, right?

      Curious, he investigated and saw identical listings on the Employment Security Commission website, using IBM's position titles like "Staff Software Developer", "Advisory Software Developer", etc.

      Turns out there is a law on the books to explain it. Before a position can be staffed by a foreign national, it MUST be listed locally so that an American can fill the position if they qualify -- just like we expect with the H1-B visa positions. Since virtually NO American with two years' experience can qualify for a $75,000 job, the listing can't be filled locally.

      Our conclusion: IBM's new SWG hires are actually just replacing existing high-paying positions into outsourced/visa'd lower-paying positions.

  15. Are these new jobs? by ostiguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or jobs they pick up from outsourcing deals? If schlotsky house of bacon outsources its IT dept to IBM, and transfers 500 employees to IBM, that aint job creation, but it is increasing IBM's headcount.

  16. Re:My degree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't go study CS thinking about jobs. You should do CS if you like computer theory, math, programming and alikes. A good job will be a consequence of your higher level of knowledge.

  17. Take CS as a minor. Major in something else by CFD339 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Major in marketing, business, or communication. Minor in CS if you insist.

    Geek skills can be learned, business speak and marketing wonkedness (yep, just made that up) cannot be learned because they are unrelated to the actual "Business" and "Marketing" techniques that work. They must, therefore, be taught in believed in along the lines of other religious zealotry. ;-)

    I leave it to you to figure out which parts of this message are pure sarcasm and which are serious. ..... as quickly as you can, grasshopper....

    --
    The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
  18. Weird wording of headline by gotr00t · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Is it really that hard to say 18,800 jobs in the headline, as opposed to writing the word "almost?" I believe that saying 19,000 does not increase the effect of the headline any, using up some extra characters and making it sound like a marketing gimmick more than anything else.

    As a quote goes on bash.org: " There was a 23% drop in temperature. That's almost 25%! ... That was one of the most worthless comments I've ever heard."

  19. Good news, bad news... by mikael · · Score: 3, Funny

    IBM has announced they will add 18,800 jobs worldwide in 2004. They say about a third will be in North America.

    And they are all lawyers to fight SCO.

    --
    Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  20. Re:My degree by SageMusings · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ahem,

    That first interview is normally conducted by HR. The second, if you progress that far, is often handled by the direct department you would actually work in. In fact, if you consider the telephone interview, most of us actually endure this process three times.

    Storming out of interviews is a poor way to put food on the table or flesh out that resume. Please, use more caution in the future. You have a lot of skilled and experienced competitors who are willing to suffer the idiocy of an HR drone for a short period.

    --
    -- Posted from my parent's basement
  21. Too many already by Fred+Nerk · · Score: 3, Informative

    I know from personal experience that IBM employ a LOT of people that are only there because of IBM's previous "Redeploy, not redundancy" policy. I worked in teams where hundreds of people spent their day printing out online forms, then typing them into another online form.

    It seemed that they were creating jobs just to keep people there, when I was pushing for working smarter, and laying off 70% of the staff.

    I wasn't popular.

    --
    Anything is possible, except skiing through revolving doors.
  22. Re:Still sounds kinda grim. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, the original poster is playing hype games. It was under 10,000 US jobs that have been lost.

  23. Re:My degree by techno-vampire · · Score: 4, Informative

    No matter how good you are, you still have to get your foot in the door. If nobody's hiring in your field, or they're looking for qualifications you don't have, you're still screwed. Alas, the idea of hiring somebody that will learn new things and grow into the job never occurs to too many companies today. They want you to be skilled in everything they need before you get there. Of course, if you are that skilled, you're probably looking for a job that needs more than just those skills. What they seem to end up with is somebody that can just squeek by on the qualifications enough to BS their way through the interview. Once they've done that, they think they don't need to learn anything more, so the company ends up with staff that's on the edge of incompetence.

    --
    Good, inexpensive web hosting
  24. You lazy bastard by Lord+Kano · · Score: 3, Funny

    In the summary it says that about 1/3 of the new jobs will be in North America. I suppose they could mean Mexico or Canada, but I think that the meaning is clear enough.

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  25. Re:My degree by back_pages · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I would advise you that a 4 year degree in "computer science" is basically worthless by itself. It is a vital step toward a graduate degree in "computer science", however.

    If you want to do 4 years of school and start a career, I strongly advise you to focus on software engineering. Take as little mathematics as possible and focus on business and more software engineering.

    I was a mathematics & computer science double major in my undergrad years and I was all but unemployable with my BS degrees. To work in software development, you need to show experience working in... software development, go figure. I had academic experience working in computation, graph theory, programming language concepts, algorithm analysis, and all sorts of mathematics that were pretty exotic at the undergrad level in CS. That's all fantastic, but what the hell type of job did that qualify me for? Basically nothing.

    It did virtually assure me a seat in graduate school, where I was working toward a graduate degree in computation. I dropped out of graduate school for a career that met all my "reasonably ideal" criteria for post-undergrad school, though, so my Master's remains unfinished to date.

    Anyway, I advise that you do NOT focus in "computer science", but rather in software development. It is INCREDIBLY more employable with a 4 year degree.

  26. Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    so not only did he not RTFA, he did not read the summary.

    it's an all new low.

    next time, i won't even bother reading the topic.

  27. ain't gonna happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    from experience, dell mentioned that they would close their corporate support.

    fact check : they did not. they sent a press release, but the call center offshore continued to grow. brilliant PR. make the folks think they keep jobs in america

    microsoft : reported that they wuold add 5000 jobs in R & D last year

    fact check : they added 3500 offshore

    ibm: most of these jobs are marketing , support and admin jobs. all most all our development, qa, project management jobs have gone.

    list of companies exporting jobs, after getting subsidies from tax payers: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/ popups/lou.dobbs.tonight/exporting.america/framese t.exclude.html

  28. Article would suggest otherwise by theluckyleper · · Score: 3, Interesting

    IBM plans to end the year with more than 330,000 employees, the largest number since 1991.

    So it's impossible that they laid off 50,000 in the past 5 years... if it were true, then 1991 wouldn't be the highest with 330,000!

    If adding these 18,800 jobs brings them to 330,000, then they must've been at ~311,000 before this announcement. Adding to that your 50,000 in layoffs would imply that IBM had ~360,000 employees at some point in the past 5 years, which isn't possible!

    --
    Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
  29. IBM is a sweatshop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I just quit there. I was treated better in blue collar assembly lines than I was at IBM.

    IBM gets business and charges less because they pigeonhole everyone. If you do websphere, thats all you do.

    If you do email, thats all you do. It's like working a government job.

    It was exactly like the military. If the process says to do the wrong thing, do it anyway.

    It's mindless.

    Better than unemployment, but not by a whole lot.

    1. Re:IBM is a sweatshop by Alioth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IBM is a huge company and there will be massive variances in what conditions are like in different parts of the business.

      I worked at IBM for about 8 years or so - officially, I was in the Open Systems Developent Group from the git-go, but:
      1. I started at IBM Havant (then Portsmouth) directly in the OSDG, mainly doing mini-projects - small up to about 1KLOC one man jobs on AIX systems.
      I then finished my university degree.
      Then I went to Raleigh, NC (Six Forks Road, not RTP) and worked on POS applications there, doing a demo system for a couple of customers.
      I then moved to Houston, and worked on a particular customer's retail system, but whilst doing that, did many side projects - some self-initiated - including looking at porting a visitor's center Space Shuttle simulator from the crufty old IBM PS/2 DOS system (complete with 12in. laserdiscs) to something newer with current hardware.

      I worked on many many things at IBM all whilst notionally being in the same department (which changed names several times, that's marketing for you) - quite a few of them self-initiated because I thought they'd be useful for our group or business. I disagreed with management a lot, and often got my own way.

      I was treated EXTREMELY well by IBM as an employee. They worked hard to ensure schedules were done right so we didn't have to work unpaid overtime. They gave me 4 weeks of paid compassionate leave when my mother died in another country. It was a superb company to work for. It wasn't mindless, and I learned an enormous amount while I was there.

      The only reason I left is that they didn't have any offices or plans to open one in the country I now live, and I wanted to live a bit closer to my Dad.

      Generalising about IBM isn't very useful (nor is generalising about Microsoft - whilst one side of MS hates the GPL, another side of Microsoft is actually *funding* GPLed projects...)

  30. At least 1,000 of these are "rebadged" jobs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know from experience, that at least 1,000 of these jobs belong to "rebadged" employees. I was layed off from a large Fortune 500 company that "rebadged" 1,000 of it's software development staff to IBM. Basically, these 1,000 employees were given the choice of excepting a job with IBM to work on what they were currently working on as an IBM employee or take a severence package. The company I worked for basically sold more that 98% of it's development staff to IBM. Therefore at least 1,000 jobs were NOT created. They were just shifted from one company to another. Although this is supposed to be a 2 year contract, there is no guarantee that these jobs will not move off shore after the contract expires.

  31. Kind of ironic by Scud · · Score: 3, Funny

    Isn't IBM in the business of helping other companies outsource work?

    Business must be good...

    John

    --
    I dream in binary.
  32. Re:huh? by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeh, and have you checked out the job websites lately? There are more job websites today, than there are actual open jobs. As far as listings, let's see, we have:

    1) The Beta Tech/ITT covert spam. You have to read it twice, to understand that after paying them $4500 for a 3 month course, they'll help with job placement.
    2) Work at Home! Christ, this scam has to be 40 years old now, haven't they already used up all the idiots?
    3) The staffing agency mining for leads. Even I get fooled by these. Recruiter calls me, asks me if I know the names and numbers of all the managers involved in the last 6 big projects I've been in for Fortune 100s. He needs them as references, and no, my coworkers won't do. And yes, as soon as I can get those references, he has a job for me. Haha.
    4) The "we have to post this publically, before we can use our H1-B". Usually identifiable by the cryptic description, even by the standards of the buzzword elite.
    5) The "must have security clearance". Ok, maybe these are legitimate, but if they all insist on pre-existing clearance, aren't they all chasing after the same 20 people who actually have it and are in this line of work? And if they're so damn rare, how about offering more than $15-17 an hour?
    6) The "let's look like a big company" PR blitz. 30 listings at once, all of them paid up extra so that the posting date rolls forward (can't even tell if they're stale or not, as if that matters). Sure, they might hire 2 of those people, but they post the rest knowing full well they'll never hire them.
    7) The "let's see if we can get a $90,000 a year expert for $35,000" job listing. My personal favorite. Not that I'm the $90,000 a year expert, just that they probably aren't successful often. Some comfort there.
    8) Outright spam. The "apply now" link will take you to viagra, porn, or every once in awhile a MLM scheme. They show up even on Monster, though to its credit, they get nailed within a few hours, near as I can tell. Seeing a disturbing number of these types of listings though.
    9) The "let's make you jump through 30 hoops to email your resume" listing. Usually climaxes with them insisting I take my resume that I've carefully crafted and formatted over the years, and strip it down to plaintext and then upload it in a webform textarea. Thanks. Not like you'll read it anyway?
    10) The impossible experience listing. 20 years of linux, 7 years of .NET. Always a favorite of the job search critic, somewhat more uncommon than traditionally believed. I have a few good ones saved, maybe we should have a contest (would need a way to weed out forgeries)?

    But never worry, with so many job listings, the economy is surely picking up.

  33. Re:My degree by WindBourne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For the most part, disregard most the replies here. It sounds like a number of people have been suffering for the last few years. It tends to produce a jaded outlook.

    CS, CE, and EE will be needed here for years to come. If you stay with CS, no problem. But, you need to consider getting a master no matter what you do. While my generation excells with a Bachelors, yours will require a master or PhD to stay in the industry.

    Rather than looking at IBM and other companies to hire you, I suggest starting your own company. You will be going to school with some talented people. Meet them and try to get something going. If you can can try to hook up with a salesman. Likewise, read Business for dummies. It will get you started. Consider doing something in the OSS world, but with a consideration to how to make a buck at it. Think Yahoo or Google. Or see what industries that you know and has MS software develoed for, but not for Linux. Develop something but think through the license and how to make money.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  34. Less than it appears by ToasterTester · · Score: 5, Interesting

    IBM continues to layoff people, just a few months back they dumped around 4600. They mainly use contractors so they pay bad, no benefits, sick days, and on and on. They just bought a large outsourcing company in India. They keep cutting the retirement programs, stock purchase program and so on. Many they bring on are ITS a employee who is only allowed to work two years for company them have to leave. They are told they can go full time during the two years, but there are huge barriors they make it near impossible. IBM has turned into a services company and most of the services employees are contractors they treat like dirt. The managers make it very clear we are full-time you are contractor dirty. IBM isn't the company they once were.

  35. Very Misleading Lou Dobbs link. by Shivetya · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It implies that there were American's to take all the jobs that were sent overseas.

    As for jobs that are marketing, support, or admin. These are all valid positions and should not be discounted just because you or someone else doesn't feel they are the right jobs. I know quite a few people who make a great living in marketing, let alone support or similar.

    A lot of companies are overseas simply because to compete overseas you have to have a presence. A lot of people in the news industry ignore this requirement because it does not generate the headlines they desire, let alone drive their own agenda.

    What it comes down to is that many people just need to grow up and realize that there are jobs worth taking and its up to them to do so. People, including the media, spend to much time dwelling on the actions of big corporations, many of who are truly multinational, because it makes them feel better when they can create a "Bad guy" instead of taking account of themselves. The majority of jobs in the US are not from big businesses but instead from the small business. Lastly too many people are upset they are offered only what they are worth and not what they think they are worth. Time to move past the selfish attitude and realize they are not the center of the universe.

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.