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IBM Promised Domestic Jobs, But is Firing Thousands of US Workers and Moving Some Jobs Overseas (siliconbeat.com)
As companies fall all over themselves to hype creation of U.S. jobs, IBM is catching flak for promising thousands of new ones while firing folks right and left. From a report: Company CEO Ginni Rometty said in a December USA Today op-ed that her firm would hire 25,000 people for U.S. positions in the next four years, 6,000 of them this year. "She didn't mention that International Business Machines Corp. was also firing workers and sending many of the jobs overseas," reports Bloomberg. Big Blue wrapped up its third round of 2016 firings -- or "resource actions" in IBM HR parlance -- in late November, and job losses for the year likely totaled in the thousands, current and former employees told Bloomberg. Many of the jobs were shipped to Asia and Eastern Europe, and the firings have continued into this year, employees said.
Another Trump victory! All hail the chief!
You thought IBM meant 25,000 net jobs?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Just a reminder that the name of the company is INTERNATIONAL Business Machines, not American Business Machines. Just because the company is based in the US doesn't mean it will necessarily hire people in the US. IBM gets roughly 65% of their revenue outside the US. One would expect their staffing to reflect that fact.
I am NOT trying to defend IBM's actions. Merely pointing out that they aren't necessarily surprising and without more context it's hard to make an informed judgement about them. I'm all for the home team but that may or may not make sense for that particular company.
It's IBM, International Business Machines not DBM, Domestic Business Machines.
All they're doing is being true to their name. Now if Apple would go back to selling fruit, and Amazon started selling warrior women the world would be less confusing.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
You probably don't know this, but IBM is also protecting US based management jobs while they are letting US based employees hit the bricks. Were you aware of that? I have a sort of relative by marriage (related to someone related to me through marriage) and he's been in middle management at IBM for probably at least 20 years now. IBM will keep him around forever even as they lay off other US based employees where he works. I'm guessing that maybe they make these people remotely manage foreign employees, but he hasn't given a lot of details and I rarely see him. I only know that he's said he has zero worries about ever losing his job there. A lot of what IBM is doing doesn't actually make a lot of sense. It's just designed to prop up the stock value.
Being removed from the GSA schedule for goods and services should be a good wake up call pour encourager les autres. After all, a vendor that is essentially angling itself as a foreign company shouldn't expect federal contracts.
Why don't you give me a million gold coins first, and then we'll see what I see in them. Wake up, we're trading good jobs for Uber sleeping in the parking lot jobs. Low unemployment may mean people are desperate and taking whatever they can.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Last year they had only 422,000 jobs in the US, but this year they will be increasing that to 397,000 jobs! It's a win for everyone - more jobs, more cost savings, and 397,000 US jobs. How can you possibly argue with that?
Oh, and chocolate rations are going up again, too.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Unless you are very very sharp - like you can read the paper on MP4 encoding - and implement it from scratch and understand the math and everything on a desert island, you'll have a future.
You are missing the much larger group of people who will continue to have jobs. They are the technical staff with the soft skills necessary to interface with business and the technical skills to make high level design decisions. This is already where most of the real money in the IT industry is made. Whether they are consultants, software architects, Director of IT, etc these workers are the most insulated from shipping jobs overseas. They are also the ones who greatly benefit from the H1B and other immigration programs.
You don't need to be in the wealthy class to have a future, but you do need to work closely with the wealthy class. If you like hiding behind your desk your days are numbered.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Ginny stated she would hire 25,000 in the US over the next few years.
Which is roughly the number of people who would normally retire or otherwise leave IBM over the same timeframe. This was more about backfill than adding positions. (I suspect the number hired would still represent an overall loss to the US employment figures).
The fact is that IBM just reported its 19th straight quarter of declining revenue. They will have zero jobs soon unless they turn it around.
IBM cognitive solutions and technology/cloud platforms divisions reported small year-over-year revenue increases. Meanwhile, global business services saw revenues sliding 4% lower, and systems sales came in 12.5% below the year-ago period.