IBM cutting another 1,500 positions [View All]

[babylonsister]

Source: AP

IBM cutting another 1,500 positions

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer 40 minutes ago

BOSTON - IBM Corp. laid off 1,570 people Wednesday, primarily from an ongoing overhaul of operations in its giant technology services unit.

The company carried out a similar level of job cuts at the beginning of the month, for a total of 3,023 in this quarter and 3,720 for the year, according to IBM spokesman Edward Barbini.

That amounts to roughly 1 percent of the company, which employed 355,000 people at the beginning of the year. But even these small numbers reflect a big project inside IBM to transform its business.

Services is IBM's biggest division by revenue, but the advent of lower-cost competition overseas has forced IBM to work harder to improve the unit's profit margins. In the first quarter, pretax income for IBM's tech services fell 19 percent, even as revenue rose 7 percent.

Wednesday's job cuts were largely part of the company's response. Although IBM did not disclose where the layoffs were being made, the company had blamed the first-quarter profit shortfall on problems in its U.S. outsourcing business.

more...

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070530/ap_on_hi_te/ibm_layoffs;_ylt=AoOdNZiVVe0bWVe80C7uLKHMWM0F