IBM to Lose 13,000 Jobs

KingDaveRa writes "The BBC is reporting that IBM is losing 13,000 jobs. This comes after disappointing financial results. Most jobs will be going in europe."

Losing your job is hard

[Aussie]

Must be really bad to lose 13,000.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[OpCode42]

Oh how appropriate/ironic (delete as misunderstood) that the parent post is marked as redundant!

Re:Losing your job is hard

[MartinG]

Losing your job is hard

No it isn't. It's incredibly easy to lose your job. You hardly have to do anything. In fact that's the best way. Hardly do anything and I assure you that you will lose your job.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Associate]

I don't know. I'm quite good at the very little I do. As a matter of fact, I'm one of the few who have gotten a raise every year for the past three. Must being doing something right.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[mboverload]

That "doing nothing to lose your job" thing doesn't seem to work for my boss.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[syousef]

Hardly do anything and I assure you that you will lose your job.

You've never worked in a large company right? Do nothing and you'll be promoted out of the way or moved sideways.

Someone needs to educate you. Go read some Dilbert and watch the movie Office Space.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[4of12]

Hardly do anything and I assure you that you will lose your job.

Upper levels of government provide a counterexample to this thesis.

As do beneficiaries of inherited wealth whose job is "stockholder".

But, then, I'm overcounting some.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[CmdrGravy]

Not true, I am doing some work for the admin arm of the NHS and doing nothing, all day, is the norm.

Maybe if you did do something there is a chance it could go wrong and I'd be sacked but more likely me doing something would have the knock on effect of causing someone else to have to do something, a scenario which would no doubt be frowned on and could result in me getting the sack.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

sometimes I get tired of this "public servants are lazy leeches on the working stiffs" sentiment. actually my wife works as a district attorney (criminal prosecution). she makes $35K per year when others with her same degree earn hundreds of thousands in firms. she works her butt off, dealing with murderers and rapists on a daily basis, receiving threats on her life.

not to mention police officers and firemen who put their life on the line every day for even less money than that.

all to have themselves lumped into the statement (and I can assure you common public sentiment) "Unless you're a public servant... in which case, doing nothing will result in a promotion."

guess what; getting a raise of any kind as a public servant is quite a thing. sometimes entire classes of public servant have to go on strike to be recognized with even a pittance of a raise after years of watching prices go up but not their wages.

many police forces and district attorney's offices are understaffed, underpaid, and overworked. we see a few ficticious examples on TV perhaps to the contrary, but those are really both few and for the most part ficticious. yes there are lazy podunk police precincts, there are abusive cops, etc.

but there are a hell of a lot of people working their asses off in dangerous conditions for little pay or chance of meaningful promotion (where promotion means more than a different placard for your cubicle).

and don't get me started on the National Guardsmen or Army Reservists, or even full-time military.

public service can bring an immense amount of meaning to one's life. it's simply too bad that so many want to demean all public servants because of the atrocities of a few or television's take on a few in some of the largest cities in the world.

maybe you mean the clerks at the DMV, or the post office, or garbage men, or the psychiatrists at the VA. guess what, not even all of them are lazy assholes who would prefer for you to wait as long as possible.

yes, there are lazy people in public service. there are lazy people every-damn-where in America. if you find it okay to call all public servants lazy, then perhaps you also find it okay to call all Americans lazy?

Re:Losing your job is hard

[hunterx11]

I think the point is that most people in the public sector have somewhat greater job security than those in the private sector, and are often less motivated by a "do or die" attitude. This is a lot less pertinent to the sorts of jobs you mention than it is for paper-pushers, though. Nowhere did the GP say anything about public servants being leeches--in fact he was commenting on public PHBs, whom I would expect to be incompetent.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Martin Blank]

It's generally accepted that most people are not referring to law enforcement (which includes the DA and PubDef offices as well as probation departments) or the fire departments when talking about public servants being slow and/or lazy. They're generally referring to the office workers and bureaucrats who move through arcane processes, playing politics with a viciousness akin to Washington, supported by a union that will fight tooth, nail, cudgel, mace, sword, gun, howitzer, and ICBM to keep from losing someone, even though there is plenty of justifiable cause.

I work for a county government. There are some good people, yes, but there are also a lot of people who play backstabbing games (particularly with those of us on contract to the county) or who can't bear to let a little bit of control leave their desks. I've had to go out to the various agencies and the amount of random chatter I see happening is far and away more than I ever saw when working in large corporations. Deadlines on simple projects are missed by months -- we're more than a year behind on rolling out one e-mail server because of politics involved with other agencies trying to shape our Active Directory implementation.

The highest quotients of good people are usually where the workers are most visible -- police, fire, DA/PubDef, probation, and healthcare and social services field personnel. Get back in the offices, though, and the signal to noise ratio can get extraordinarily bad.

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Destoo]

Especially on the 05-05-05 at 5:55...

5 was my lucky number.

"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[Anonymous Coward]

This article's headline is completely wrong.

IBM is not "losing" jobs; IBM is firing people.

The only way IBM could lose jobs is if it's Human Resources Department realized it could not locate the job descriptions for 13,000 people.

Worse still, can you "plan to lose" something? Of course not. Losses are unintentional.

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[CastrTroy]

Thank god someone said it. They always try to put such a nice spin on things. They aren't losing jobs. They are firing people because they only made x Billion in profits instead of yx Billion in profits, where y is a number greater than 1.

Re:"Losing" is completely the wrong verb.

[Emperor Cezar]

In business, just because you have money now, doesn't mean having money later. There are costs that don't show up on this quarter's report, but that need to be paid later none the less. You also have to return money to the stock holders, many of them middle class people who have invested money into your company and need to support thier life.

Sometimes you have to make the decision of firing people now, so that others can keep their jobs later.

At least...

[ari_j]

Hey, at least the article didn't say "IBM looses 13,000 jobs."

Re:Losing your job is hard

[Anonymous Coward]

* <--- joke

__o__
| <--- you
/ \

Hmm not a suprise

[Foo2rama]

Gee maybe becuase they sold the whole PC MFG dept?

Re:Hmm not a suprise

[Associate]

They still have servers.
And Lucifer Gerstner is still rich as hell. Satan Palmisano is on his way.
Not to mention, they are about to settle with the pensioners they screwed six years ago.
Hell, I got a $63 settlement from it. But I'm not bitter. Pffft!

Re:Hmm not a suprise

[n9891q]

Two points.
(1) the sale of PCD included selling the employees. PCD lay-offs will appear as Lenovo actions.
(2) PCs are manufactured outside Europe (Mexico, China, etc.).

The loss of however many jobs is still unfortunate.

My uncle

[MaestroSartori]

has just been laid off from the Greenock plant, where he was involved in manufacturing for 20 or so years. He's now working in a call centre handling mortgage applications... :(

The UK as a whole seems to be moving towards this kind of economy - jobs involving manufacturing, especially, are going, to be replaced by jobs where you can be sacked at the drop of a hat, and are generally pretty poorly treated. Sad.

Re:My uncle

[Marcion]

Yeah thats pretty sad. IBM eventually will not produce any hardware but instead subcontract everything to outside cheap labour. Whether people will be laid off from the software side too is an interesting question.

Re:My uncle

[Monkelectric]

Welcome to the world economy Europe. Thats been going on in the US since the 80s. It SUCKS. We can't figure out a better system, why don't you guys work on it for awhile and get back to us with something. Whats your hourly fee again?

Re:My uncle

[Saeger]

We can't figure out a better system ...

A better system would be to provide a living wage (as opposed to the welfare dirty word) to those people whose jobs are increasingly replaced by automation and cheap labor. If you're one of the lucky few who still does USEFUL work in exchange for something, then you get extra incentive gravy for your WANTS, while those not so lucky/smart/quickly-adaptable get enough redistributed gravy to meet their NEEDS. Nobody should have to live in mortal fear of losing their job (unless you're one of those asshole sadists who believes that keeping the serfs suffering is a great motivator and makes it easier to keep control (and if so, fuck you)).

Robotics, IA/AI, nanotechnology, and other exponentially advancing technology [kurzweilai.net] will inevitably lead to this kind of world. "It's different this time". We can either choose a humane leisure society fed by intelligent automated production & fair redistribution, or we can choose to continue the greedy ratrace to the bottom as the wealth gap widens [blogspot.com].

(I'm sure a lot of people who worship at the alter of dog-eat-dog hyper-capitalism and "globalism" will just write me off as some kind of idealistic-socialist-commie-hippie or whatever. Oh, and I am one of the "lucky" ones, but I've also got a conscience.)

Re:My uncle

[Vince Mo'aluka]

I've also got a conscience

So do I, and that's exactly why I do not believe in robbing Peter to give to Paul. The fact that government is "giving" to Paul (and -- cough -- taking a cut for themselves) does not, by any rational means, make the act of robbing Peter moral and just.

And please spare me the lies about the people "choosing" to submit themselves to force. A person cannot voluntarily submit to force, any more than a person can force another person to volunteer.

Re:My uncle

[IgnoramusMaximus]

So do I, and that's exactly why I do not believe in robbing Peter to give to Paul.

The trick is in the choice of terms here: what if Peter is an oligopolistic Robber Baron who scammed billions of Peters until their livelhood became untennable? You would like to present it as a case of saintly, highly-talented, God's favourtie child Peter innocently and piously pursuing his "destiny" to great wealth and unlimited power over others and on the other hand a Satanic band of evil, underhanded, greedy wolf-like Pa

Re:My uncle

[eric2hill]

A better system would be to provide a living wage (as opposed to the welfare dirty word) to those people...

That's called socialism [wikipedia.org]. This is a democracy. Be sure and understand that distinction as it leads to a government-controlled life.

Re:My uncle

[LWATCDR]

"That's called socialism. This is a democracy. Be sure and understand that distinction as it leads to a government-controlled life."

This in one of my pet peeves.
Yes it is called socialism but you can have a socialist democracy.
You are confusing economic systems with political systems.
China has less of a socialist economy than Sweden does. But Sweden is far more democratic than China.
I agree that giving people money for nothing is wrong. It is degrading and self defeating. What we need get back to is the idea that there is dignity in all work. It does not matter if it is picking up trash in a park what you earn is yours.

Re:My uncle

[master_p]

You're right! one day techology will reach a point that nobody will have to work. Then we should either restructure society in foundamental ways or kill ourselves in a survival-of-the-fittest war.

Unfortunately, it is the latter that I see coming. I don't see people agreeing that 1+1=2, much less conforming to a global social/economic system like the one you describe.

Re:My uncle

[kayak334]

What you say sounds great, in theory. However, that isn't how the real world or economics works. Robotics and automation lead to cheaper goods for everyone and free up a portion of the workforce to do other things. "Other things" meaning other jobs in the workforce that are in higher demand than the job that just got automated. If you think that we will one day just run out of jobs because everything will be automated, then you need to read a book on basic economics and a book on the human spirit.

Re:My uncle

[KrackHouse]

Your idea is exactly what Germany is trying right now. Their unemployment is approaching 15%. Would you rather have a living wage if it meant there were far fewer jobs available? In fact, the living wage increases the incentive for business to use robots.

Toshiba (the evil greedy capitalist corporation) is producing a new nano-battery in 2006 that has the potential to cut pollution dramatically as it'll be used in cars instead of gasoline. Greed leads to good things and cheaper products much faster and

Re:My uncle

[SunFan]

The irony in the living wage/minimum wage arguments is that the economy adapts within a few years such that the new living wage is worth no more than the old one. There is simply no way that the government waving a magic wand in the law books can change the fundamental strength or weakness of the economy, unless it is the biggies like the federal interest rate or tax law (i.e., money to/from the government itself).

Re:My uncle

[Kombat]

[Re: Transitioning manual labour jobs to mechanical automation]

Thats been going on in the US since the 80s. It SUCKS.

I respectfully disagree. That automation is what keeps the price of so many products affordable. The increased profits from said automation are what have driven stock price increases that have allowed millions of people to enjoy a comfortable retirement. This is capitalism at its finest. If you don't like it, there are plenty of (miserable, socialist/communist) countries who'd be will

Re:My uncle

[hackstraw]

We can't figure out a better system

I have not heard a single complaint from any [mb]illionare CEO. Being that the range of wages between the lowest and the highest paid employees keeps getting larger, I would only expect this type of system to increase until it implodes on itself.

Fuck benevolence, that does not show up on profits.

Re:My uncle

[Smerity]

While yes, your uncle being laid off is certainly not good, it's really not IBM's call at the moment.

My mum works at IBM and the IBM/Lenovo split is a very short time off now. This is the main transition point for the company. Your uncle losing his job most likely is that Lenovo is unwilling to hire him, not IBM 'firing' him.

IBM has been making hairline profits on their PCD section for years and years, under very heavy competition. They're changing their whole buisness setup. Losses are to be expected...

Re: My uncle

[Anonymous Coward]

My sympathies go with your uncle. I've been made redundant twice - it is not fun. What the the election in the UK today there is a LOT of talk about the UK economy (what with the collapse of Rover etc.). The problem is that we are becoming a service industry - which is no bad thing in itself (unless you are a manufacturer). This is the crux of the issue a lot of Brits have with jobs going to India - it is NOT based on racial prejudice as most would suggest - it is simply a matter of job competition. The rea

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

I'm curious about that -- how do you think it could have been avoided?


Mrs T. was keen to cut away the dead wood (the declining shipbuilding industries) in order to give tax breaks to the South East. Not a bad thing by itself, but the money saved would have been better invested in retraining and education for the communities in the North of England. At the time of these cutbacks, the local people were crying out for financial assistance in regenerating their cities, but Mrs T. wouldn't help - She was only interested in tax-breaks for the City. As a result the Militant faction of Labour gained power [bbc.co.uk]. This led to Mrs T. imposing rate-capping [nwlg.org] on the various Labour city councils. Both sides (Militant Labour and the Conservatives) realized that this was going to be the class war of the decade and were determined to fight to the bitter end.

The collateral damage of this war, was that the middle classes left the inner cities a generation ago, moved down South and have never returned. It was only a decade later with financial aid from the EEC that the North of England is slowly regenerating. But the only new business that are setting up are service jobs: supermarkets, pubs, nightclubs and maybe the odd software company,.which usually gets bought out.

Instead, the communities in the North of England have continued emigration, with everyone who could, having moved down to the South of England, which itself is now becoming overcrowded and overpriced (So overcrowded, that they even building flats and houses on the communal piece of grass in the squares (three streets facing each other).

The current Labour government is trying to fix this "North-South divide" by dispersing asylum seekers and moving government jobs away from the South of England, but everyone wants to stay where the wealth is.

Re: My uncle

[Malc]

So who's going to the pub and nightclubs? Drinking is an expensive habit. There must be enough money coming from somewhere to make these businesses viable.

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

So who's going to the pub and nightclubs? Drinking is an expensive habit. There must be enough money coming from somewhere to make these businesses viable.

Mainly students and casual workers (we refer to them neds, scallies, chavs) - the government wants 50% of all school-leavers to continue onto university. Asylum seekers work as bartenders for minimum wage (5 pounds/hour).

Re: My uncle

[mikael]

At the time, there was a shortage of affordable housing in areas like Liverpool and Manchester. Other housing stock was in need of renovation.
The workers who were laid off could have been retrained as brickies, plumbers (who are more engineers as they have to repair/install electric showers), electricians, and joiners.

Ironically, a plumber in the UK can now earn over £100K/year [plumbing-school.co.uk], more than double that of a software architect.

Re: My uncle

[jrumney]

Where in East London would that be? London does not have anywhere near the shortage of jobs that some places up North where the BNP has a real chance of getting in do, and most of East London is multicultural enough that the BNP's support will be negligible. BNP strongholds tend to be predominently white working class areas with high unemployment, and have an Asian enclave nearby. That just doesn't exist in London.

Re:My uncle

[Gordonjcp]

I work in another part of IBM at Greenock, which hasn't been sold to Lenovo. It's just crazy, there are people who have worked in the same area as me for years, who are getting moved to another part of the site simply because Lenovo staff just aren't allowed up our end. I need to badge through four security doors now!

That's good!

[Anonymous Coward]

13.000 new OSS developers.

Re:That's good!

[Anonymous Coward]

And 13,000 new 0.1 version desktop managers or graphics engines on SourceForge...

Wheel? Never heard of it before!

Australia

[ari_j]

I think they have to commit a pretty egregious misdemeanor to be sent to the island prison before they can benefit from that program.

Re:That's good!

[Shisha]

More to the point, the jobs going won't be R&D jobs. Not that there is anything supporting this claim in the article, but I can't imagine IBM firing 13000 coders.

See the opportunity

[dublinclontarf]

This is an opportunity for all those who lose thier job to go and start thier own company, I think that there is a need in the European market for more small I.T shops. But are we Europeans up to it? At least the Irish are.

Re:See the opportunity

[Dogtanian]

This is an opportunity for all those who lose thier job to go and start thier own company, I think that there is a need in the European market for more small I.T shops.

If any UK readers think this is a good idea, bear in mind how the danger of software patents would make life disproportinately harder for small businesses, and vote accordingly in today's general election.

Yeah, I know it's not a European election; the question is, do you want to support those that will make your life harder because thei

Re:See the opportunity

[Peter Cooper]

Yes, because they've provided a stable, though not rapidly growing, economy since 1997. Furthermore, we avoided a recession in 2001-2002, unlike nearly every other major world economy.

Re:See the opportunity

[MartinG]

I'm more likely to start up in India than Europe becuase it's looking likely we are going to have software patents over here and that will kill off all the small IT shops more than anything else.

Re:See the opportunity

[hackstraw]

This is an opportunity for all those who lose thier job to go and start thier own company

Lets weight this out.

Get laid off from your OK 40 hr per week job with benefits, etc to start a company where your insane to expect to work anything near 40/week plus the responsibilities of managing employees, getting startup loans or capitol, with no guarantee that you will make anything like you were making at your old 40hr/week job. Oh, and all of this is assuming that you are a risk taker and have the minimum k

RSS of this story

[tokyopimpdaddy]

I only noticed this story via the BBC RSS feed as it had some extensive strikethroughs - nothing massively interesting, but it shows that they do indeed have editors! Shameless plug of my blog here with pics:

http://www.nanikore.net/?p=364 [nanikore.net]

erm

[Turn-X Alphonse]

The blerb is misleading. This was reported earlier on BBC news 24 (about 5 hours ago) and they said IBM hasn't said where they will be cutting the jobs back. It could be in several places not just Europe.

Dont forget about Poland

[AdamPiotrZochowski]

IBM is expanding in Poland, hiring almost 200 people in Cracow alone, and so are
many other big name companies like Motorolla, KPMG, Lufthansa, 3M, Phillips:

http://miasta.gazeta.pl/krakow/1,35798,2689839.htm l [gazeta.pl]

everyone in europe is moving to Poland, its as nice as Ireland, just as many drunks
but much cheaper, people are educated, and lots of beautifull clean land.

--
/apz, Don't kid yourself. Little is relevant, and nothing lasts forever.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[mboverload]

What does that mean? I'm sure Indians are probably just as capable of deciding something as you.

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[Rakishi]

*shrugs* Someone please post studies as both views have merit. I've heard some down right scary stories of how some Japanese adults can't do anything because their mother did everything for them until way into adulthood. Now these may be isolated incident or rumors, which is why I am wondering if anyone knows of any studies.

However, disregarding culture (and upbringing in general) as a large factor in how a person acts is plain stupid as studies have shown. For example a person from an individualistic soci

Re:Dont forget about Poland

[lachlan76]

I'm not trying to spread FUD, I'm just trying to give one idea of what the GP could have meant if it's true.

Unless there's been actual evidence one way or the other I wouldn't consider either opinion FUD.

Uh, people?

[mr_snarf]

Am I the only one who thinks the article title is odd. I mean 'IBM to Lose 13,000 Jobs'. I would have expected '13,000 IBM workers to lose their jobs'. *shrug*

Re:Uh, people?

[Malc]

It sounds very careless, doesn't it? It's almost like the author was trying to use some euphemism to soften the image of IBM. Who knows why? They had to re-word what the Beeb said in the original story. They used the word "axe", not "lose".

Re:Uh, people?

[YouHaveSnail]

Odd, yes, and inappropriate. Seems to equate 13,000 people with car keys. IBM decided to terminate 13,000 people. I expect it probably had some sort of reason for that... IBM has layed off or terminated large batches of employees before, and I'm sure it's not something that the company takes lightly. Nevertheless, it's the (ex-)employees who are losing something.

Re:Uh, people?

[KingDaveRa]

Just FYI, I wrote that post at about 10pm, by which time I'd been awake for about 15/16 hours, having only had about 6 hours sleep the night before. Looking back at it, the grammar isn't good, and I wish I'd written it slightly better. As for my code, yes, it sucks, but the comments are good.

Multi-national corps do not outsource

[Senor_Programmer]

they just reallocate.

Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant

[Ice Station Zebra]

If you work in the corporate environment you should remember that you don't matter. What you do doesn't matter. You should be ready and willing to do anything...anything for the corporate bottom line.

The stock holders must be paid first, the CE0, the board, everybody with VP in their title second, and --- if there is anything left --- you.

That doesn't mean they won't take your stapler and forget to pay you. It means that you are nothing to them, all those times you supported the Republician party because you believed in lower taxes and less government, lies. Your pay has decreased since they took (and I really mean took) office. Sure, the price of your home as gone up, but the bank still owns it and you pay even more in property taxes and insurance costs. Oh, and don't use that insurance. Too many claims (and by too many I mean one) and you are off looking to the state for help, because no one will insure your castle. And you now that government help is bad. You don't want to be a welfare queen do you?

So, follow my advice. When the corporation tells you to bend over and take it up the arse. Just do it. Then, head straight for the nearest pub. You will need a good pint and this may be the last time you can afford one.

Re:Advice to the corporate slave ... A Rant

[bigtallmofo]

You are a liar. My pay as a developer has gone significantly up since Republicans took office.

Keep doomsaying and maybe you'll be back in power. That's a lot easier than coming up with your own ideas and presenting them in a way that brings people to your side.

How times have changed

[btarval]

For almost all of the last century, when you worked at IBM, you were guaranteed a job for life. I don't know if people realize this, but IBM reportedly didn't have layoffs even during the Great Depression (which made the dot-com bust look like peanuts).

How times have changed. I'm sorry to hear about how this will impact the lives of all those people affected, directly and indirectly.

Re:How times have changed

[ebooher]

I think what you meant was:

The Great Depression was bad. Really bad. You couldn't believe how vastly, hugely mind-boggingly bad it was. I mean, you may think the Dot.Com era was a horrible circumstance, but that's just peanuts to the Great Depression.

Re:How times have changed

[Ubergrendle]

You apparently don't remember the restructuring that occured in the late 1980s/early 1990s when IBM had their lunch handed to them by Microsoft (Windows), Compaq (PCs), and Sun (Unix).

IBM cut their global workforce by tens of thousands. Not that I'm speaking from personal experience, but the one thing I've admirred IBM for in the past was the way they treat their employees...even when they have to take drastic measure, they try to be transparent in their decision making process and their severance packag

Re:How times have changed

[TheGratefulNet]

I worked at DEC at corp (maynard) back in the late 80's. that was the first real RIFF blow-out. DEC had a culture of not laying off, either. there was so much room inside to move around in, you could stay in the company for 20 yrs and still find new things to do and work on.

of course, DEC went belly-up - but it sure had its share of layoffs before that. when I was there, the employee base was about 120,000 people! and we bragged that we had the largest private network in the world (EASYnet). by the t

They're Not Lost....

[bobdobbs3]

IBM didn't "lose" 13,000 jobs - that sounds as if they misplaced them, or had this happen to them. Not so. IBM *cut* 13,000 jobs. Or *slashed* 13,000 jobs. In a related news item: 13,000 IBM *workers* lost their jobs.

Hmmmm...

[Bad to the Ben]

Bill Gates can't find enough IT workers, so he wants to change visa regs to get more in. IBM has too many IT workers, wants to fire them.

Perhaps Microsoft (European division perhaps) could hire the retrenched IBM staff?

Europe in a not so graceful decline

[jamej]

The world is happy to sell in Europe but nobody wants to produce in Europe. The unions have strangle hold on the economy and labor/business laws are hostile to corporations. Much of their young talent moves to the US. I firmly believe they might consider changing shortly after hitting rock bottom.

Re:Europe in a not so graceful decline

[b5turbo]

The labor laws are there for a reason, due to corporate abuse and dangerous work conditions, if we didn't have the labor laws, there would be 10 year olds still shoveling coal instead of in school or working tech support for some corporation in a little 3 x 5 cubicle (cell).

How does this work?

[gregoryl]

From the article:
"The news comes just weeks after IBM reported worse-than-expected earnings in the first quarter."

Why fire 13,000 workers for that? It's clear that it's the profit forcasters that are doing the crap job - fire them.

Funny

[imr]

I have seen lately many news like this one where big backers for software patents in europe say they might be obliged to do the same, and always in europe.

So how many of them were attorneys?

[ubiquitin]

IBM is a notoriously lawer-centric corporation.

If their press release said "IBM laid off 13000 attorneys to hire 13000 engineers" I'd be buying their stock. As it is, I hope the hedge fund managers ride this bitch ALL the way down.

oil industry still cutting jobs

[peter303]

IBM is not alone. The US oil industry is still cutting jobs [chron.com], even though profits have been at record highs along with gasoline prices. The oil industry has been continuing a 25-year job-reduction trend mainly caused by compuer-aided productivity and the migration of oil prodution outside the US. A rational person might think that companies & investors would get even more profit if they employed more people to obtain more oil.

Whats the net change?

[taj]

Last August IBM said it was adding 19000 jobs. Now they are cutting 10-13k.

They are 10k employees from their record high in 1991 when most considered IBM the most evil tech company on the planet.

Are the growing or shrinking? Strange to switch so fast.

"IBM sets free a workforce"

[RedLaggedTeut]

"IBM loses 14,000 jobs" - how pessimistic - why not phrase it:
"IBM sets free a workforce of 14,000 skilled workers".

It's all about spin. After all, people thought it was cool when the Sovjet Union collapsed and set free millions of workers employed in the military complex.

Wal-Mart to Hire 600,000

[thelizman]

So who do you love?

Uncomforable Irony

[Jukashi]

John: Hi Bob!
Bob: Yeeeah, Hi Bob. We had a problem over the weekend..
John: Geez Bob, sounds bad, what happened?
Bob: Well, its embarrassing, but we seem to have lost your job
John: You lost it ?!?
Bob: Like I said, its embarrassing. And it wasnt just yours. Looks like we misplaced a good 13,000 of them
John: So I'm fired ?!?
Bob: Oh no not at all. You're a great employee John we'd never fire you. Lose you job yes, fire no.
John: I'm going to look for a new job..
Bob: Well if you find your old one let me know!

Re:veryhai

[shyampandit]

Heh, you have a very weird logic there.

Atleast if the jobs went to India, someone would gain, as Indians would get more jobs.

I dont know why this resentment over jobs going to India. India is a poor country and many people cant find jobs easily and there is no welfare system, so if you dont have a job your as good as on the streets. India can use all the jobs it can get!

Re:veryhai

[Bigthecat]

No, a poor country doesn't require a shit-load of low-paying jobs. The citizens of a poor country require good-paying jobs with good conditions and workplace protection laws. Moving well-paying jobs to a poor country as you put it isn't 'helping them out', it's exploiting them.

Re:veryhai

[ErikZ]

Notice how all those countries who were "exploited" back in the 80s now are much better off and are headed to 1st world status.

From a 1st world view, these jobs are horrible. From a 3rd world view, these jobs rock.

Re:veryhai

[Bigthecat]

And what about the countries losing jobs? Workers will work for less and less and the scale will tip the other way. The problem needs to be fixed at the source, not merely rearranged for something that looks like a short-term fix for someone who doesn't understand history.

Re:veryhai

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

I dont know why this resentment over jobs going to India.

We resent jobs going to India because we can't compete with Indians. If jobs were moving because there aren't enough skill workers available here, or because the cities are dirty, crime ridden shit holes or because the taxes are too high that would be one thing - we could work with that. But none of that's the case. These jobs are going to India because they have skilled workers working for a fraction of a western minimum wage. Nothing we can po

Instead of blaming India...

[artifex2004]

people should "blame" consumers. We demand cheaper prices for our goods, and labor is overall the most flexible cost area in the world market. Right now, many western nations have above-average wages for manufacturing positions, so it is only natural for those jobs to go elsewhere, assuming the transportation of imported goods is not cost-prohibitive, and these are not industries that are crucial to national survival.

Forget all the claims about productivity of workers in the US or Western Europe, too: star

Did you RTFA before commenting?

[MarkEst1973]

It doesn't say that the jobs lost are going to Europe, which I presume prompted your "it's better than sending them to India" comment.

Or is your statement more broadly ignorant than that altogether where it's better to fire people outright than outsource?

Re:Pray for forgiveness sinners!

[Marcion]

Er what? Trolls for Christ, You are a bit weird I have to say. You also are a bit tasteless; this being a thread about people losing their jobs. What would Jesus do? He wouldn't troll Slashdot thats for sure, he would sell his domain names and computers and give the money to the poor. RTFB! You weirdo.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Governments Should Tax Their Profits More

[Xoro]

"Makes the corporation think twice about outsourcing and messing up local economies when thousands of job losses occur when a major facility in an area gets closed down..."

Makes a corporation think twice about locating there in the first place. Better to have loved and lost...

I'm afraid I don't see any simple solutions to this trend.

Re:Governments Should Tax Their Profits More

[MoralHazard]

If a corporation makes profits in your country then it takes money out of your country. By employing people in your country a corporation puts money back into your country.

You're ignoring the gains to a country's economy when (since they're moved operations to a cheaper country) that company can lower its prices and be more competitive. What about all the money that domestic customers save as a result of outsourcing? How do you propose to factor that into the equation?

Sure, the benefit may not start to

Re:moving to cheaper countries

[JohnnyKlunk]

It's already happening. I don't know why the media hasn't picked up on it. I've got friends at a major UK corporation. Some time back they were all outsourced to IBM. Now they're being flown to Bangalore to show people there how to do their jobs.
Once they've handed their own jobs to these people they then get moved to 'project teams'.

Will be interesting to see how many redunancies are made without ever suggesting that the jobs have been moved to India.

Re:moving to cheaper countries

[stevesliva]

In fact it is far too difficult to check if the crisis really occured or if it is a fake.

If you think it's fake, I'll sell you my IBM shares for what they were worth in January. It's real enough for me. It's pretty naive to think that something like this would be a facade given the huge amount of press and criminal prosecution has gone into condemning fiscal tricks here in the US.

And yes, the point is valid that the UK is partcularly expensive right now. A "cheaper" country could well be the US. W

I love it

[Bigthecat]

13000, a full thirteen thousand lose their jobs and some guy on Slashdot says that it isn't a problem, they'll find work elsewhere. I'm glad that you're in a position to easily make such predictions without experiencing what is happening for yourself.

I've been in that position.

[Colin Smith]

Lets get some perspective.

13,000 is a tiny, miniscule number out of the workforce of a single country never mind 25 countries.

If you're willing and able to move to where the work is it's easy to get a new job. If you are unwilling or unable then you may well be in for a long wait.

Life's a bitch, then you die.

[Colin Smith]

I have no idea what kool-aid is but I do know that for the last 20 years people have had to learn to be flexible, not to expect a job to last any more than a few years and to show exactly the loyalty to an employer that they would show to their employees.

Welcome to the free market.

Re:Wasn't that expected?

[Bigthecat]

Well shit, it was 'expected', I suppose we should all pretend that it didn't happen then. Somehow I doubt that many people losing their jobs will take comfort on what analysts 'expected'.

Re:A quote to all the corporate Stalins out there

[bengoerz]

If you RTFA, you'll notice that 13,000 jobs constitutes only 4% of IBM's workforce. While this is by no means a small reduction, it is far from "near-cataclysmic random-act-of-God-like massive". If you apply this percentage cut to a small shop of 20 people, you've just fired 1.

Also, I am sure it is far from a "RANDOM-act-of-God" move. You don't fire your best employee. You fire the least-profitable one. And if you are the one who has been marked as the least-profitable, shame on you for not having foresi

Re:Job losses voluntary in Europe - facts

[geoffrobinson]

You may have a point. Their jobs may be more expensive just b/c they are in Europe than in a more economically free area.

Re:IBM and Linux

[Detritus]

We wouldn't want to retrain them, that would cost money. Better for the company to just dump them on the street.