IBM to cut `thousands’ of jobs

[OhioChick]

Source: Bloomberg

13 Apr, 2009, 1006 hrs IST,Bloomberg

LONDON: International Business Machines Corp plans to cut “thousands” of staff in the UK, Germany and Ireland as it shifts jobs to eastern Europe, China, India and South America, the Observer reported.

Job reductions have already been carried out in western Europe and more will be made within months, the newspaper said, citing Lee Conrad of Alliance@IBM, a network for company employees.

Indian workers at the company earn about 10 per cent of the amount paid to US employees performing similar tasks, according to the newspaper.

An IBM official told the Observer that a number of US employees have been laid off, declining to comment on future job reductions.

London-based IBM spokesman Joe Hanley said IBM declined to comment on “speculation regarding resource actions.”


Read more: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/News/More-job-cuts-at-IBM/articleshow/4393987.cms

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IBM....Going cheaper, yet.

[ChromeFoundry]

1. Race to the bottom.

Let IBM ask eastern Europe, China, India and South America for bailouts.

[CatholicEdHead]

3. This will come back to bite them eventually

[madrchsod]

2. rr donnelley moved it`s printing plant from ireland to poland

cheaper labor in poland and the rest of eastern europe

[earthboundmisfit]

4. You know they may have something there - if CEO/CFO/COO/Upper Management

could be moved overseas and paid 10% of what they're being paid here - somehow I don't think that would fly...

[Doctor_J]

5. They're not cuts - they're off-shoring

New slogan: Big Business - Transforming the entire world into the Dominican Republic

[redqueen]

8. "Big Business - Transforming the entire world into the Dominican Republic"

Interesting. Why the DR?

Just curious...

[saigon68]

10. Actually Bangladesh is already taken

[Doctor_J]

17. It just popped into my head as a place where peasants work for subsistence

and have minimal say over their conditions. Insert your own 3rd-world country.

[antimatter98]

6. IBM is merely following the salary gradient to lower paid areas of the world.

Which is how the company is attempting to reduce its 'people costs.'

The US is being abandoned because its entitlement programs cost too much,
and corporate taxes (national and local) are too high compared to cheaper
parts of the world. The US will need to adjust it's costs downward and pay has to
drop before we will see any investment here in the future.

The corporation is like a robot--seeking all possible ways to maximize shareholder return. Remember
in the late 70's and 80's it was the 'move to the US South' that accomplished this, causing
the rust belt? Today, its the same thing only out of the country entirely. The entire US is the
rust belt now.

Corporations apparently are not bound by US law regarding outsourcing and shutting down
plants, so they do it. Sure, someday this might turn around, but not in my life time as long
as current trade policies and corporate rules exist.

We employees get to endure 'market forces,' while the corporations get bailouts, and socialized welfare (call it health care for corporations).

America has no business plan, other than to outsource and move plants and labs off shore.

[nichomachus]

11. Which is why we need to seriously regulate corporations -- to prevent this

[Yavin4]

13. By Doing This, They're Killing Their Consumers As Well

These global corps keep making one fatal mistake: they assume that the level of consumption will remain the same or be even higher in the markets whereby they're removing the jobs from. Companies, like IBM, are counting on consumers having easy access to cheap debt to finance purchases of their products.

Look at the Nasdaq. We're entering 10 years of massive and aggressive outsourcing of IT jobs to India, yet the NASDAQ is still nowhere near what it was before the dot com crash in 2000 when it was at 5000.

[OneBlueSky]

7. "Indian workers at the company earn about 10 per cent " . . .

of the amount paid to US employees performing similar tasks, according to the newspaper" . . .

and so it goes . . . manufacturing is already gone, IT is well on the way . . . with this kind of differential, pretty soon there won't be any U.S. jobs left other than food service, retailing, and trash collection . . .

[formercia]

14. and prison guards

serf time.

[ihavenobias]

9. To the greatest. n/t

[Mithreal]

12. Another glimmer of hope for the economy, right. nt

[blue97keet]

15. Flow diagram

Jobs and wages => out
Easy credit => in
= financial meltdown

[OhioChick]

16. No Jobs = No Recovery. n/t