First Dell, now IBM: 15,000 jobs face the axe at Big Blue, says union

[FarCenter]

BM is set to spend another $1bn on job cuts this year to eliminate an estimated 15,000 jobs worldwide, according to trade union Alliance@IBM.

The company has already spent the same amount of money last year on 'workforce rebalancing', its euphemism for redundancies.

Big Blue's chief financial officer for finance and enterprise transformation, Martin Schroeter, has admitted there would be more cuts in 2014, during the announcement of IBM's fourth quarter earnings last month.

"As we look forward to 2014, we’ll continue our transformation, shifting our investments to the growth areas, and mixing to higher value. We’ll acquire key capabilities, we’ll divest businesses, and we’ll rebalance our workforce, as we continue to return value to shareholders," he said.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/05/ibm_job_cuts_q4_2014_preview/

[packman]

1. Poor wages, poor economy

poor economy, no one buying because they do not have the money to buy. Shit, how much of an economic wiz-kid do you have to be to see the cycle? It's a self-fulfilling cycle. How to solve it - increase the min. wage and all salaries of the poor to middle class. Businesses now are seeing the chickens coming home to roost and how do they solve the problem they have in effect caused? Only way they know how - get rid to the workers who should be buying their products.

[FarCenter]

3. It is also a change in the IT industry from selling hardware and software to services

IBM's traditional business is selling hardware, operating systems, and middleware to business customers, along with consulting services to configure and operate businesses data centers and to integrate applications running in businesses data centers.

In the future, businesses will run pre-integrated application on hardware and software in IBM's data centers. This shift to "cloud" will reduce markedly the need for IT employees.

[jsr]

2. "Rebalance our workforce" = Ax workers to fatten executive compensation