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IBM plans to cut 1,180 to 1,385 jobs, around a quarter of the workforce in France, unions say

2020-11-26T10:52:14.745Z


The US IT giant IBM, which wants to focus on the " cloud " or cloud computing, plans to separate about a quarter of its workforce in France by 2022, as part of a reorganization global campaign aimed at getting rid of the least profitable activities, according to unions. Read also: IBM's revenues fall for the third quarter in a row This social plan provides for the elimination of 1,180 to 1,385 p


The US IT giant IBM, which wants to focus on the "

cloud

" or

cloud

computing, plans to separate about a quarter of its workforce in France by 2022, as part of a reorganization global campaign aimed at getting rid of the least profitable activities, according to unions.

Read also: IBM's revenues fall for the third quarter in a row

This social plan provides for the elimination of 1,180 to 1,385 positions, or about a quarter of the workforce in France and was announced in early November in a European group committee without precise figures for France, according to Unsa and CFE-CGC.

It is a

mixed

"

PSE (job protection plan), which must be officially presented to the trade unions on December 16, with a plan for voluntary departures but also no doubt layoffs if there is not enough. of volunteers

”, explained to AFP Pierry Poquet, central union delegate Unsa (first union).

The CFE-CGC (2nd), which confirms this information, called on Wednesday in a press release the new president of IBM France Béatrice Kosowsky in order to "

ask her for guarantees in the face of the scale of restructuring

".

It's a global strategy.

We have no vision of what IBM will offer tomorrow for France.

It is as if, arrived at a period when part of her skills are obsolete compared to the digital revolution in progress (Big Data, artificial intelligence, 5G ...), she was getting rid of a generation of which she does not know not use the potential,

”said Franck Setruk, central union delegate CFE-CGC, to AFP.

These job cuts are part of a worldwide restructuring of IBM which affects "

more than 20% of the workforce in Europe, or 7,700 people

", according to Unsa, "

up to 25%, or rather 10,000

", according to the CFE-CGC.

Asked by AFP, the management of IBM France indicated that its "

decisions in terms of personnel were taken in order to provide the best support to [its] customers in the adoption of an open hybrid cloud platform and of AI

”(artificial intelligence).

"

We also continue to make significant investments in the training and skills development of IBMers in order to best meet the needs of our customers,

" she said without further clarification.

Split

This reduction of nearly a quarter of the workforce in France will take place "

before the major reorganization announced by Arwind Krishna, CEO of IBM Corp., concerning the split of IBM into two separate companies by the end of 2021

", underlines the CFE- CGC.

This could lead to the "

reduction (total) of nearly 50% of the 5,000 current staff of IBM France

", with "

a transfer of just over a thousand additional positions in France to the new structure

", according to Mr. Setruk.

IBM announced in early October that it was splitting its infrastructure management activities into a listed company to focus on the “

cloud

”.

The new company will bring together the hosting and management activities of services and infrastructures which, according to IBM, have an order book of 60 billion dollars.

The American giant is banking on companies' appetite for the cloud, and in particular the hybrid cloud, a mixture of “

private

” (own servers) and “

public

” clouds (servers from a supplier like Amazon or Microsoft, the leaders in the sector ).

These two operations (restructuring and split, Editor's note) are added.

The numbers are such that it will be difficult to stay in volunteering.

Are we going to be able to continue to honor our customers?

Who will be their future interlocutors?

Will there be development opportunities?

We fear that the only logic is to reduce wage costs,

”underlines Mr. Setruk.

Read also: IBM splits to focus on the cloud and artificial intelligence

For Mr. Poquet (Unsa), “

it's a change in strategy: IBM is separating itself from all outsourcing, getting rid of old jobs and older employees (employees over 50 are the majority in France, Editor's note) to focus on the new (cloud, artificial intelligence) with fewer people, younger

”.

IBM employs 400,000 people worldwide.

It generated $ 17.56 billion in revenue in the third quarter, up from $ 18 billion last year, down 2.6%, but posted net profit edging up 1.8% to 1.7 billion.

Source: lefigaro

All business articles on 2020-11-26

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