Duncan TuckerNearshore Americas has received reports that IBM has laid off up to 350 workers in Mexico, around 80 in Mexico City and the remainder in Guadalajara. Worldwide job losses could total 15,000, according to the IBM Global Union Alliance.
When contacted by Nearshore Americas, IBM neither confirmed nor denied the reports. “It is IBM policy not to break out employee numbers by country,” IBM’s External Communications Team Leader, Susana Maldonado, told Nearshore Americas. Maldonado did acknowledge that “IBM continues to re-balance its workforce to meet the changing requirements of its clients, and to pioneer new, high value segments of the IT industry.”
“IBM has done business in Mexico for 86 years, and we look forward to continuing to help our clients in Mexico innovate and grow,” Maldonado added. “IBM is positioning itself to lead in areas such as Cloud, Analytics and Cognitive Computing. IBM is investing in these priority areas. For example, we have recently committed $1 billion to our new Watson unit and $1.2 billion to expand our Cloud footprint around the world.”
Lee Conrad, the international coordinator of the IBM Global Union Alliance, told Nearshore Americas, “We have received information that there were job cuts at IBM Mexico. We do not know the number. We believe IBM should tell the governments of every country where job cuts are taking place what the numbers are.”
The reports of workers being laid off in Mexico come at a time when IBM is making job cuts globally. “IBM has been cutting jobs worldwide since the beginning of the year. We are hearing that up to 15,000 IBM employees worldwide could lose their jobs,” Conrad added. “IBM cuts are being driven by a goal of $20 earnings per share by 2015. This is a poor business model and one that relies on cost cutting instead of business building.”
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