IBM Stalls Layoffs in U.S. for Rometty WMC Speech, Cuts Begin Elsewhere

IBM (IBM) appears to have stalled for a day the planned layoffs in the United States under its $1 billion “workforce rebalancing,” code-named Project Apollo, according to reports in the employee union Alliance@IBM.

Management meetings with employees scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 26, have been moved back a day to Thursday, Feb. 27, posters at the union’s online forum said. IBM is thought to have postponed the exit meetings to accommodate a keynote speech by chief executive Ginny Rometty at the World Mobile Congress, electing not to overshadow the event with news of the job cuts.

Still, the vendor has begun axing employees at some facilities in Europe and Asia, issuing pink slips to workers in the United Kingdom in its Systems and Technology, Technical Support Services and Financial Services groups, and reportedly has laid off all 100 people on its Power systems and storage teams in Taiwan, according to internal sources speaking to the employee union. There was no word on how many workers have been cut in the United Kingdom at this point.

Some reports said furlough packages already have been issued to workers at an IBM facility in Tucson, Ariz.

According to the Albany, N.Y., Times-Union, IBM is expected to cuts hundreds of jobs in the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where it maintains some 7,000 employees. The vendor cut a deal on Monday with the NanoCollege to save 3,100 jobs in the area through 2016, but there’s no guarantee it won’t lop the remaining workers in the area from its rolls.

The Alliance@IBM has compiled an informal running headcount of the layoffs. As of Feb. 26, here are the union’s figures for IBM’s job cuts in Europe, based on reports from workers and affiliated unions, and picked up by WRAL TechWire : Belgium 105; Argentina 600; Brazil 1,500; Netherlands 240; Norway 35; France 480; and Italy 430.