Looks like they’re backing off. Trial balloon. Show across someone’s bow?
http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/opensource/224700807
IBM Denies Plan To Cut 75% Of Workforce
Big Blue dismisses report that it intends to replace three-quarters of its global staff with independent contractors.
By Paul McDougall InformationWeek
The original article said IBM was to reduce its US workforce by 78%. The response from IBM denied they were going to reduce their “worldwide” workforce by 78%.
Both articles could be true if they hire 3 unskilled workers in India and China for each US worker.
yes...they may be backing off...under pressure from the WH...after all this is election year...
I competed with IBM for most of my 40+ year career in sales and in 1999-2000 was with a company that IBM bought.
Since I had many thousands of options in single digits and IBM payed $ 18, I have no bad words for Big Blue.
I left after less than a year because I had always sold for young, start up companies, with little structure and large commission rates, and so we didn't agree on the way I should be compensated.
But for a very large company, in my short employment there, I was impressed with senior management and the professional way almost all IBM employees acted.
Had I known that al queada was going to pull a 9/11 I'd have never left IBM, but with 20-15 hindsight, I'd have changed a few other business decisions that I made.
Your link is to an article from May 5, 2010. Is that evidence that Cringley is wrong April of 2012? BTW, Why did IBM stop breaking out employees by country recently???
From Wikipedia, In 2010, IBM employed 105,000 workers in the U.S., a drop of 30,000 since 2003, and 75,000 people in India, up from 9,000 seven years previous.
IBM India listed 131,000 employees for 2010, not sure why the difference from above.
Here are numbers for U.S. workers as compiled by Alliance at IBM, a union (UGGGHHH) seeking to represent Big Blue employees (2011 and 2010 are estimates by Alliance since IBM no longer reports jobs numbers by country):
2011: *98,000
2010:*101,000
2009: 105,000
2008: 115,000
2007: 121,000
2006: 127,000
2005: 133,789