Thursday, January 21, 2010

IBM - Non-Union Employees Get Ready For Another Layoff

IBM Corp. showed off their financial report Tuesday, showing the company as a whole with record-breaking profits in 2009 of $13.4 billion, earnings per share of $10.01 and and predicting an improved outlook for 2010.

At first glance the regular, middleclass worker would think, "Hey! This looks good for jobs in the area!" Maybe they are done with the recent history of substantial downsizing and job cuts.

However, Mark Loughridge, chief financial officer, told brokerage analysts that there will be more reduction of costs through "work-force rebalancing." That invariably means disappearing jobs in IBM.


While Loughridge put a 2009 number of $3.7 billion on cost reductions, including job cuts and consolidating work in various centers, he did not give a specific number for 2010. A year ago, he gave a more detailed report.

"How should we think about additional cost and expense savings?" asked David Bailey of Goldman Sachs. Let me guess - Cut the working people out of the equation and give yourselves huge bonuses??

"It's not going to be at the $3.7 billion spend takeout that we saw last year," Loughridge said. But such reductions, he said, will be an "ongoing part of our overall business model."

IBM cut about 10,000 jobs in the United States in 2009, according to various company disclosures - get ready for more. Hundreds of those jobs lost were in Dutchess County.

Profits are good - jobs are a cost to those profits - no matter how high those profits get - they can't get high enough.


The IBM workers should have organized into a union ten years ago - now they are paying the price of being at-will employees for a corporation that couldn't give a shit less about them or any "American" job.

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