back to article Hands up if you want to volunteer for layoffs, IBM tells staff

IBM is asking staff who want to take voluntary redundancy to raise their hand as it embarks on a new round of global job cuts, though roles in Europe and within a handful of departments are expected to shoulder the brunt. The Resource Action, as Big Blue likes to euphemistically refer to layoffs, shouldn't be a massive …

  1. Ace2 Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    “Any financial savings will be used to free up money to invest in technical and industry skills.”

    Translation: We’re going to put even thicker gold plate on the bidet in Ginny’s retirement home

    1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

      Did NOT need that picture in my head just before lunch.

      1. simonlb Silver badge
        Joke

        Ah, but it's there now. Cherish that image.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No, they're filling another building with employees in Mumbai.

      1. Tim99 Silver badge

        A close contact at IBM UK has had more than half of their Indian based team laid off. Needless to say times have blown out, and they think that some stuff will not be delivered. Maybe India is looking expensive? I might have stuffed up the currency conversion, but it looks as though a senior IBM engineer in India is paid roughly twice that of a similar position in Thailand...

  2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Gemini Image?

    Cos that doesn't represent the age/gender profile of IBM firing workforce de-emphasizing subjects

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And how long will it take for the other sheep (Dell, HP, Google....) to follow suit?

    1. philstubbington

      Dell didn’t use to do redundancies, they called them voluntary separations. You know, like being voluntarily separated from your pay packet…..

  4. trevorde Silver badge

    Didn't IBM just have a round of redundancies aka RA, just recently? It's almost becoming a monthly event.

    1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

      Maybe not monthly, but they're not hiding that this is a fact of life now.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        If you fire half the workforce, costs go down and profitability, therefore shareprice, goes up

        Somebody playing with a spreadsheet discovered you can keep dividing by two indefinately.

        (Eventually you are going to end up firing fractions of people but that's a problem for later)

        1. GoneFission

          Half of you will be put on a PIP for not maintaining your 200% output efficiency and commitment, so we'll have to reduce your salary by 50%, so sorry. Try not to get yourself half-fired.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            The PIP is just a way to make you want to accept the voluntary redundancy when offered. It adds stress without actually offering you a route back to 'performance'.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          There's an old adage that 'you cannot cut your way to prosperity'.

          This was being discussed at one of IBM's competitors once and a senior manager responded with 'actually, you can, but you end up being a much smaller organisation'.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It was annual, then biannual

      When I took my package over a decade ago it was 15% reduction per year by geography, division and band.

      When I joined a quarter of a century ago IBM was changing but it was still a company that developed technology, now it's just another Oracle, harvesting licenses.

  5. martinusher Silver badge

    What, again?

    Honesty, if its February (just), Thursday or whatever it must be time for IBM to announce redundancies....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What, again?

      This was a special leap day bonus RA.

      The usual monthly RA will be tomorrow.

  6. Woodnag

    voluntary redundancy?

    Slap me if I'm wrong, but in UK isn't it the *job function* that is made redundant, not the body performing it. So voluntary redundancy is legally a no-no.

    1. Lurko

      Re: voluntary redundancy?

      Technically it is only specific roles rather than the function or the role-holder that becomes redundant, but there's nothing stopping the employer from allowing people to trade places. In my (considerable) UK experience of working through such downsizings, most large employers offer generous terms, and there's often more people wanting to take the money and run than they wish to get rid of. Whether that's the case in Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria I can't say, do we have any readers who can ?

      There's a certain irony to all this, because these near-shore locations were chosen as a great place to transfer West European roles to. These near shore countries were also used by IBM consultants as role models for low cost support functions on account of the wage arbitrage. I was paid a very decent sum to leave when my employers set up a captive service centre in Rumania.

      Either IBM have lost customers so need less staff there, or alternatively local wages have risen so the IBM are moving the roles to somewhere cheaper still, like Syria, Gaza or Yemen.

    2. Youngone

      Re: voluntary redundancy?

      In my country, the number 2 ISP in the country asked for volunteers to be laid off and 100% of the staff applied. Hilarious.

      The guy I dealt with wasn't accepted, probably because they couldn't contact him. Goodness knows I couldn't

      1. philstubbington

        Re: voluntary redundancy?

        Same happened at Dell years ago. Not quite to that degree but it was oversubscribed.

    3. katrinab Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: voluntary redundancy?

      Let’s say you are a supermarket, you have 10 checkout assistants and decide you only need 5. You could then legally ask for volunteers amount the 10 checkout assistants to take redundancy.

  7. Groo The Wanderer

    Stick a fork in IBM; they're done. They've tried to cripple everyone who made the mistake of depending on their "open source" platform, they've butchered Linux with that boot-management abortion of theirs, they've culled virtually all of their experienced staff across the board except the management dweebs, and the cuts continue.

    Why anyone would still invest their hard earned dollars in IBM stock is beyond me.

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Quote

      "Why anyone would still invest their hard earned dollars in IBM stock is beyond me."

      Because it continues to grow in value , plus chances of higher dividends in future thanks to a scheme to increase profits.

      Just dont be holding onto those shares when IBM's bubble pops... and judging by the way they're happy to throw away knowledge, that could be sooner rather than later......

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        They have locked-in government contracts and own congressmen facilities in every state so those contracts aren't going away

    2. martinusher Silver badge

      >Why anyone would still invest their hard earned dollars in IBM stock is beyond me.

      Individual investors are on the whole not at all interesting. They're after big funds, usually funds investing pension contributions. These not only represent huge amounts of hard money but also work purely by the numbers (so if IBM could do away with physical product and just make numbers then that's be fantastic). (My theory of business is that "All corporations tend towards the IRS (HMRC -- UK) business model. All collections, no product.....")

      1. Robert Grant

        > "All corporations tend towards the IRS (HMRC -- UK) business model. All collections, no product....."

        Of course - those organisations are what you get if your product is "we don't lock you in a box for not paying us".

    3. willyslick

      >Why anyone would still invest their hard earned dollars in IBM stock is beyond me.

      Not related to products or services - but rather to stock buybacks

      1. Miko

        That's one thing that never makes sense to me (except from a company looting perspective)

        Stock buybacks should only be allowed if management compensation is *not* tied to the performance of the stock, neither directly nor by explicit bonus metrics.

        Otherwise you create an absolutely massive moral hazard. For a long term investor, it seems to me that any benefits pale in comparison to the hollowing out that clearly results over time because of this.

    4. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

      It amazes me that they're still making money somehow.

      Is it just momentum in the sales of mainframe services, software and replacement hardware? Or is it something else? I mean, their Quantum stuff isn't being sold currently AFAIK.

  8. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

    Technology Companies Need

    ... four things to be long-term viable: a healthy tech R&D department, solid products (or services, but that's a shakier foundation) they can effectively sell, the ability to translate what R&D comes up with into products they can effectively sell, and the luck to create-and-keep a good board of directors. "Good" in this case meaning, "is looking beyond quarterly numbers, and refuses to take actions to prop up those numbers at the expense of the company's well-being."

  9. DeathSquid

    It's great to see Finance will be "impacted". Live by the sword, die by the sword. Hopefully HR will be next...

    1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

      HR were in the list mentioned in TFA. Which surprised me, since usually finance and HR mysteriously seem to exclude themselves from such cuts.

  10. Nastybirdy

    Phew

    Honestly glad I don't work for Big Blue anymore. 14 years and multiple rounds of layoffs was more than enough. They really are the perfect example of a company that thinks they can cut and fire their way into profitability.

  11. disgruntled yank Silver badge

    Have you caught the bug?

    "circa 50 percent of IBM’s reduction goal will impact staffing levels across the European continent" looks like corporate PR's way of saying "about half the layoffs will occur in Europe."

    And when IBM says "corporate rebalancing", I imagine employees walking blanks to port and starboard both.

    1. Tomato42

      Re: Have you caught the bug?

      Also surprising... did they forget that labour laws in Europe are vastly different than the ones in the States?

  12. GuldenNL

    IBM - A Leader in RIFs

    I remember hearing about RIFs at IBM going back to the 80s. I've always wondered why anyone in their right mind would every consider working for IBM.

    Thereby causing my latest question, are there any sane people left at IBM?

  13. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

    Replaced

    "Replaced by A.I.!!"

    Just putting that two-letter acronym in your press announcement will pump up your stock price.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does IBM actually do anything besides lay people off?

    I’m surprised that there’s anyone left.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not wishing to be disingenuous to anyone at IBM - I have worked with quite a few of you - but if the offer on the table is right, take it.

    I'm far more interested in the abilities of the individuals than the parent corporation they happen to have an employment contract with. I would also be inclined to suggest that an offer now is probably better than an offer later, when the company gets into further trouble?

  16. Torquemada_131

    HR is not your friend,....

    It was a lesson which took me too many years to understand,....

    But HR isn't there to protect you from the company,...

    HR are employed to protect the company from you.

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