IBM is planning layoffs of 5,000 high-skill U.S. workers in its Global Business Services unit, transferring some of the work they performed to India, according to media reports. The cuts will affect mainly information technology and consulting work in such areas as customer relations management and supply chain management, says Lee Conrad, national coordinator of Alliance@IBM,
Armonk NY-based IBM has been eliminating U.S based jobs for many years. IBM has previously reduced U.S. employment by 6,000 workers in 2008. Since 2003, the company has hired approximately 90,000 people in India and more than 5,000 in Brazil to do IT and business-process outsourcing [BPO] services work.
IBM is working to secure pieces of the give-away American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 $787 billion stimulus measure enacted in February. IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano was one of 13 executives who met with President Barack Obama in January in an appearance aimed at pressuring the House of Representatives to pass the economic stimulus bill. IBM is seeking a share of the $8 billion the U.S. plans to spend on high-speed rail and part of the $20 billion in the stimulus plan to digitize the U.S. healthcare system. as well as resurrecting BPL as earlier noted here The give-away American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 includes $11 billion to be spent on ‘smart grid‘ systems to monitor and manage the nation’s electrical network.
According to CIO Today, some economists have estimated that taxpayers are paying an average of $225,000 for each job created in the economic stimulus package. According to Martin Kenney, a professor of political economy at the University of California, Davis,: “Taxpayers are saying, ‘I don’t want to give them money if they’re moving jobs offshore.'”
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The give-away American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is turning out to be a $787 billion bailout of dubious firms like AIG and IBM and just keeps getting worse and worse for those of us who still work in America.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.