Obama Boom: IBM To Lay Off 110,000 Workers

by JASmius



A plaintiff corporate death scream if we've ever heard one:

The jobs will be cut as IBM undergoes a massive restructuring in a ‘desperate’ attempt to revamp its business, according to a report on the US Forbes website. But IBM poured cold water on the article, calling the reported scale of the job cuts ‘ridiculous’ and ‘baseless’.

Translation: Their draconian contraction plans got leaked, and they immediately lurched into damage control mode.

The website said the company was preparing to merge its three main arms – hardware, software and support – into a single operating business. It will break down the ‘Chinese walls’ between the divisions and reorganise staff into teams based on their jobs, such as sales or research.

This is because of the growing demand from businesses to use companies such as IBM as a ‘one-stop shop’ for technology needs. It is expected to restructure its entire global workforce – some 430,000 people – under a programme known as Project Chrome.

IBM has struggled to shift from its traditional strength of making computers to offering IT services and information storage.

That's a lot of corporateze for "the hardware market is drying up because fewer and fewer consumers and businesses can afford to buy our PCs and servers, so we're in a desperate search for new revenue streams that we're not likely to obtain, and in the mean time we've got to cut costs in order to survive, so we're laying off most of our employees."

Creates quite a contract with Barack Obama's rainbows-and-unicorns depiction of the Obamaconomy a week ago, doesn't it?  But don't worry, soon-to-be unemployed IBMers, does he have a food stamp deal for you!