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You can get around this by having the layoff numbers be under the threshold at any one time, moving people around, and spacing the layoffs in waves.
You really think IBM is going to lay off thousands and thousands of employees this way?
And, of course, no ex-employee is going to make any of the public aware of this?

You really think IBM is going to lay off thousands and thousands of employees this way? And, of course, no ex-employee is going to make any of the public aware of this?

Information Week February 28, 2012:

IBM has laid off more than 800 workers at locations across the U.S. in the past 24 hours, according to company sources and documents obtained by InformationWeek.
...
IBM's U.S. headcount fell from about 134,000 employees in 2005 to roughly 105,000 in 2009, the last year it broke out its worldwide employee distribution by country. Since then, its U.S. headcount has fallen to 98,000, according to an estimate by IBM employee advocacy group Alliance@IBM, which is affiliated with Communications Workers of America, Local 1701.
IBM has said it needs to build up its workforce in regions where it's seeing growth. The company's sales in the Asia-Pacific market were up in 9% last year, compared to 7% in the Americas. But critics say that, as IBM increases its presence in countries where wages for programmers can be as much as 75% less than in the U.S., the burden of the redistribution is falling too hard on American workers.

And, of course, no ex-employee is going to make any of the public aware of this?

IBM has been doing it for years and no one ever finds out on a large scale. There usually are no articles in the paper and the main ones who know are the employee's family/friends.

Those who are cut are paid off to stay silent, and in fact, can lose their severance packages if they make waves.

The remaining employees take on more and more work, in addition to being forced to work with lazy 3rd world workers (such as in Ireland). You get what you pay for, and we are constantly told that they can hire 2-3 in Ireland (or China or almost anywhere else) for one of us. Often, in addition to accent/translation issues, there are quite vast cultural differences, making it difficult to "team."

In addition, the outsourced ones, again, such as in Ireland, have something like unions. Essentially, if they pass their probation, they can never be laid off (I've heard jokes that even if they murder someone). That sure makes them work harder (not).

Meanwhile, too many of the few remaining jobs in the U.S. are filled for quotas only, and not for intelligence/skill.

It's like working on the Titanic at this point.