IBM will cut 3,900 jobs as part of its strategic restructuring

IT group IBM will shed 3,900 jobs, or just over 1% of its workforce, as part of a layoff plan linked to its strategic reorientation, a source familiar with the matter told AFP on Wednesday.

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The Armonk (New York State) company did not specifically mention these job cuts in its results press release published Wednesday or in a conference call to present its quarterly accounts.

Leaders mentioned only the $300 million extraordinary charge, which, according to the source, corresponds to the cost of the social plan.

A spokesperson told the IAAF that the cost was “entirely related to the spin-off and sale of Kindle’s health business”.AFP. “These measures are not taken based on 2022 performance or 2023 projections,” he said.

In 2021, IBM separated from the rest of the group its information systems consulting and management operations, one of the company’s historical branches, but it had much less investment than remote computing (cloud).

The new entity that resulted from this split was named Kindle and went public in November 2021.

As for the activity related to data collection and analysis in the medical sector, which is part of the Watson Health division, it was sold to the investment firm Francisco Partners in early 2022.

If the positions affected by the social plan remained within IBM’s fold after these two splits, these were functions related to these two operations, according to the source.

IBM on Wednesday released fourth-quarter revenue slightly above estimates and net profit in line with analysts’ estimates.

During an earnings conference call, Chief Financial Officer James Kavanagh said it was “cautious” to expect growth at the lower end of the group’s normal range.

In electronic trading after the close on Wall Street, the IBM title lost just under 2%.

Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet (Google) have all recently launched massive redundancy plans, after ramping up hiring during the pandemic to meet increased demand for digital services.