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IBM To Cut Thousands of Roles in Focus on Software Growth (reuters.com) 52

Posted by msmash from the more-cuts dept.
IBM will cut thousands of roles this quarter while it continues to shift focus to higher-growth software and services, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. From a report: "We routinely review our workforce through this lens and at times rebalance accordingly," Bloomberg quoted a company spokesperson saying. "In the fourth quarter we are executing an action that will impact a low single-digit percentage of our global workforce."
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IBM To Cut Thousands of Roles in Focus on Software Growth More

IBM To Cut Thousands of Roles in Focus on Software Growth

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  • That just sounds like nonsense (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @04:15PM (#65773328)

    Can anybody decode what they mean?

    • Management wants to lower the head count, todo list Announcement (Check) ...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        So basically "bullshit...bullshit...firing people...bullshit....bullshit"? That would fit, agreed.

        • Since the lowering head count and firing stuff was explicitly stated in the announcement, the sad claims of some subterfuge are more Marxist-analog complaint, class warfare at its heart.

          IBM wants to shed employees that do not appear, to management, to be the best allocation of resources towards new and different goals. Wow, when you put it hat way, it seems to dastardly and intended to cause maximum harm to society and humankind. Or not. I vote for not.

          But this is /. and so is a haven for the Marxist theori

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Be aware you are wasting your negative mod points.

            I have not had mod points in a long time. But I do not mind, because if I care enough to read, I care enough to comment.

    • Firing people randomly has been sport there for decades [warntracker.com].
    • ... yes, it's nonsense.
    • I fed this to Bubba-AI, Claude's less-well-known uncle-dad, who translated:

      "We routinely review our workforce through this lens and at times rebalance accordingly. In the fourth quarter we are executing an action that will impact a low single-digit percentage of our global workforce."

      into:

      We done gone on a FIRING SPREE! Yee-haw!

      You're welcome.

    • They're so desperate to not include any even slightly negative sounding terms that this basically becomes a self-parody.

      In the fourth quarter we are executing an action that will impact a low single-digit percentage of our global workforce.

      'We're doing a thing that will affect some people'. Yeah, the thing you're doing is firing people, and being fired tends to affect people, yes.

  • How did Watson work out for you, IBM?

  • Happy holidays, IBMers!

  • I can't remember (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @04:22PM (#65773348)
    the last time I read an article about IBM that didn't involve their quarterly 30K person lay-offs. I'm surprised there's anyone left there, at all.

    What does this company actually do?

    • Hires people for three months, from what I can tell. I also can't remember when I didn't hear about a 10k+ sized layoff at IBM.

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] I wasn't sure either, but it looks like research / IP in some technologies newer than I'd have guessed so they may still be pushing the envelope in some ways but presumably their customers are other companies rather than the public.

    • The mainframe and AS/400 (IBM i) divisions are still kicking.

      • Plus, IBM owns RedHat. So that's probably something. Then again, maybe that is the hyper growth software and services bit that they want to keep.

      • It's not really kicking, it's more... what's the name for that shambling walk that zombies do?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Mostly support for mainframes that they no longer sell, I think. The Pentagram for example has mainframes so old that they literally have to buy replacement parts on eBay.

    • They still sell mainframes to large banks and other dinosaur financial institutions that haven't figured out how to migrate their operations to modern metal. Google IBM Z series mainframes. And they monetized open source software by buying redhat. IBM would probably be out of business decades ago if its wasn't for mainframes and redhat.

    • Made me curious. Here's a graph of their headcount over time [discerningreaders.com].

  • Chop Chop Chop (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hwstar ( 35834 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @04:26PM (#65773360)

    The whittling away of white collar jobs is going to have profound implications.

    These white collar jobs pay the bulk of the taxes as well as medicare and social security trust fund payments.

    At some point the government isn't going to be getting the revenue it needs to continue operating at its current level.

    This means either the government will have to shrink its budgets, or find a way to tax AI and automation so that it continues to operate at the level it wants to operate at.

    Either way the government will have to do something to prevent its revenue stream from diminishing.

    Automation robot per-operation tax and AI token tax anyone?

    • Re:Chop Chop Chop (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @04:41PM (#65773396)

      This means either the government will have to shrink its budgets, or find a way to tax AI and automation so that it continues to operate at the level it wants to operate at.

      Correct and more the latter, austerity as policy has a pretty bad track record out in the world. The money exists, production is getting more efficient, profits are higher than ever, people are making it just have to get it.

      Or the real big brain answer is go full Georgist [wikipedia.org]

    • Time to value blue collar work over white collar. Everything around you was built by the blue collars while white collars sit on their ass ordering it to be done.

      The reason it is upside down is because white collars set the wages, so of course theirs is valued more. Newsflash: anyone can sit on their ass all day.

      • The value of work (or a product) is based on one and only one thing: the price on which a buyer and seller agree. As applied to work, the buyer is the employer, and the seller is the employee, who sells time for money. As long as the employee is willing to work for a certain wage, that is what the work is worth.

        That value is determine through supply and demand. The higher the demand, or the lower the supply, or both, the higher the value of the work (or product).

        As long as there are more plumbers and electr

        • Unfortunately, there is a contingent of people who believe that the value of work is "a piece of the pie". For example, if by assembling the widget, I enable the company to make a $50 profit, the value of my work is the portion of that $50 attributable to my work.

          Also unfortunately, the contingent of people that believe this seems to be growing.

          • I enable the company to make a $50 profit, the value of my work is the portion of that $50 attributable to my work.

            You forgot to multiply by the number of widgets.

            But yes, the value of your work is the portion of the revenue (not profit) that your work produces. Sometimes this number is easy to calculate other times it's extremely hard or impossible to calculate so it gets estimated with a very, very rough guess.

            And if the amount of revenue is less than the cost of all the materials and labor, why even produce the widgets at all? If the company is not making a profit, why would the owners of the company not change the b

            • Labor doesn't have to be different. Some people sell their time for money (paid by the hour). Some people sell their efforts by the task or item (like gig work). Some people are in it for a percentage of the profits (business owners who risk their own capital). All of these are legitimate methods of getting paid, and all are subject to supply and demand. The value of that work isn't determined by some bureaucratic third party, but by a negotiation between employee and employer, and is affected strongly by s

          • This is certainly one way to be reimbursed for one's work. There are three main ways people get paid:
            1. People are paid for the number of hours they work.
            2. People are paid for the number of tasks they complete or widgets they build.
            3. People are paid based on the profit or income from their work.

            The third method is what you seem to be referencing. This is certainly legitimate, but it also comes with a risk that the profit is zero or negative.

            Each of these methods requires a negotiation: the buyer (employer

  • So this isn't really going to hit all that hard unless they're cutting sales which would be madness.

    That said I have literally had problems with prescriptions because the company that makes a drug I'm on fired all their sales people and they're not keeping up with the doctors to make sure they are renewing scripts.

    And one of the major credit card processors, Fiserve,. Just took a 44% hit to their stock because they aren't meeting there goals.

    The former CEO who now works for Trump to reform and c
    • If I were to tell you that these were mostly H-1B visa holders being cut would you change your tune and be incredibly happy since you're one of the posters here who seems to have a particularly fiery passion against them?
  • "Shrinking for Growth", again. At this point, IBM's only product is the momentum they built up in the 20th century. Lucky for management that's a hell of a lot of momentum.

  • They haven't run out of people to fire yet? (Score:3)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @04:41PM (#65773394)
    Or maybe they're re-firing people a second and third time, for good measure.

  • stock price (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @04:43PM (#65773402)
    Investors always reward cutting staff with raising stock prices. And, since CEO pay is largely determined by stock price...

  • Cut Roles means Layoff.
    Layoff means Fire

  • IBM used to be the king of the hill.
    They had products in every segment.
    They registered more patents than everyone else.
    They were immensely profitable.
    They were a career for life.
    They invented the PC.
    They were the best blue-chip stock you could buy.
    They were widely respected and admired.

    Now look at them. A bunch of shysters acting like their consultants actually provide value. So sad.

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