IBM Global Services cuts 720 U.S. workers

Company says staffing cuts made to adjust to customer needs

October 3, 2003 (Computerworld)

About 720 IBM Global Services employees in the U.S. are being laid off from their jobs as part of a reassessment of staffing needs within the company.
The layoffs affect about 0.4% of the 180,000 IBM Global Services staff, for a total of about 720 employees, according to a company spokesman. IBM has about 315,000 workers in all its divisions around the globe.
The affected workers are "widely scattered" around the U.S. and are often at various customer facilities around the country, the spokesman said.
"This is basically the nature of the services business," with staffing needs adjusted periodically depending on the work requirements of customers, the spokesman said. "This is a skills-rebalancing measure."
Affected employees were notified of the layoffs Oct. 1 and are being given opportunities to seek other jobs within IBM.
Last month, IBM cut 380 U.S.-based software jobs to eliminate overlapping positions and increase efficiency. The cuts affected about 1% of IBM's 38,000 global software jobs and were mainly in marketing and administrative areas (see story).