IBM announces extensive job cuts

Armonk (dpa) - The US tech group IBM has announced extensive job cuts in the corona crisis. The decision was probably a unique and difficult situation for some employees, said a spokesman for the company on Thursday (local time) in a statement.

The company had to remain flexible in the highly competitive market in order to be able to recruit highly talented workers at all times, and the group's decisions were in the interests of the company's long-term well-being.

The company based in Armonk, New York, did not provide detailed information on how many jobs IBM plans to cut. However, this is likely to involve thousands of jobs, as the "Wall Street Journal" (WSJ) reported, citing corporate circles. At the end of last year, IBM had just under 353,000 employees.

It would be the first cut in employees under the command of the new CEO Arvind Krishna, who wants to boost growth at IBM again. Krishna had just taken over from Ginni Rometty in early April, previously he was head of the IT giant's cloud division.

Over the years under Rometty, IBM had initiated a far-reaching corporate change to new business areas such as cloud services, data analysis and artificial intelligence. So far, however, success has been limited, quarters with business growth have been rare for years. In April, IBM cashed out its outlook for the current year due to the Covid 19 crisis. As early as January, the group had already spoken about cost reductions through "aggressive structural measures" as part of its business figures.

IBM is not alone among tech companies with job cuts: The travel agent Uber, for example, recently cut around 6,700 jobs, and the apartment agent AirBnB also wants to lay off a large proportion of the workforce, according to reports. The IT service provider Hewlett Packard Enterprises, which specializes in commercial customers, announced a far-reaching savings program on Thursday after losses, which should also help realign the workforce in growth areas.