IBM Layoffs 2015: Employees Say Firings Have Begun

IBM (IBM) employees in Australia are reporting the vendor already has begun handing out pink slips to all levels of workers, ranging from project leads to managers and account reps.

The Alliance@IBM, a watchdog site for IBM employees, posted this message: “Employees reporting urgent requests from managers to meet one on one Wednesday 1/28/15,” adding that the “Resource Action” (RA) already is underway in Australia. 

Lee Conrad, Alliance@IBM national coordinator, told the Rochester, MN Post Bulletin that layoffs also were being reported by employees at IBM’s Poughkeepsie, NY and Research Triangle Park, NC facilities.

“It’s going to be a bad day for IBM employees and their families,” Conrad said.

“The Alliance@IBM is receiving information from employees that a ‘resource action’ or mass job cut will start Wednesday, January 28 in the US and Canada,” the site posted. “A resource action is already taking place in Australia. We do not know how many will be cut in the US but it could be thousands. We need information from employees who are let go in the mass job cut.”

An IBM employee in Australia confirmed the layoffs have begun there, posting:

“I can confirm first hand that significant cuts are being made in Melbourne, Australia at multiple levels from Project Executives, DPE, Managers, SDMs, SMEs across multiple accounts. It seems to be predominantly affecting permanent staff, but contractors seem to be affected too. There seems to be no pattern to the selection criteria, as seemly indispensable people in key/critical positions are being removed. What is becoming abundantly clear is the organisation is effective scuttling itself.”

Word surfaced last weekend that IBM is prepping to layoff up to 26 percent of its global workforce, or some 100,000 workers, in a workforce reduction timed to a major corporate reorganization codenamed Project Chrome. The reorg would ending IBM’s hardware, software and service silo history and creating new business units for Research, Sales & Delivery, Systems, Global Technology Services, Cloud, Watson, Security, Commerce and Analytics.

IBM subsequently dismissed the reports, and, while the vendor didn’t deny that layoffs were in the works, called the 100,000+ figure “ridiculous” and “baseless.”

Still, as might be expected, IBM employee morale is taking yet another hit—thousands were fired in layoffs at this time last year and in mid-year 2013.

“Once again senior management is trying to ‘fix’ the company by terminating the very people who can fix it,” a post on the Alliance@IBM site read. “It is time for a clean sweep in the executive offices and Board of Directors. It is time for a new direction, one that values employees.”

And, another employee posted:

“IBM management has engendered so much ill will as to cause dysfunction and hate and paralysis amongst the employees. If you do not change management now, you will lose control of the business. Watson nor Dickson nor analytics nor cloud is going to change the fortunes of this company.”