A historic technology company joins the wave of layoffs from Google, Microsoft and Meta: IBM

Another of the US tech giants has embarked on a massive layoff plan. IBM he announced this Thursday that he will do without it 3,900 employees at the same timethus adding to the recent announcements of other “Big Techs” from Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.

Specifically, the multinational founded in 1911 and recognized for having massively introduced PCs in the 1980s, will reduce about 1.5% of its global factory. However, the cut is not linked to 2022 financial results or 2023 outlook, a company spokesperson told AFP.

2022 was the company’s second consecutive year of earnings expansion after nearly a decade of stagnation, and the company was one of the few in the industry to have its share price increase (5.4%), according to to the Bloomberg agency.

For fiscal 2023, meanwhile, IBM — which currently employs 260,000 people — expect an increase in earnings approximately 5% and sales expansion of 1.2%.

According to the company, the cuts are linked to the spin-off of some companies, including Kyndril, a company born out of enterprise infrastructure services provided by IBM, and Watson Health, a data and artificial intelligence company for the healthcare sector.

Despite the cuts, IBM, like other tech companies that recently announced layoffs, plans to continue hiring in “high-growth” areas, according to the company’s chief financial officer, James Kavanaugh, as it transitions to cloud services, a area whose revenues increased by 11% annually in 2022.

The European SAP is also reducing its staff

Another of the companies to announce a “restructuring” was SAP, which also announced the elimination of 3,000 jobsequivalent to approximately 2.5% of the 120,000-employee plant worldwide.

The company, of German origin and which offers software and cloud services for business management, said it wanted to implement a “specific restructuring program” to “strengthen its core business” and improve its performance.

This reduction in personnel, according to the company, will cost between 270 and 330 million dollars, especially in the first quarter of this year, but with which it expects to save between 327 and 382 million dollars a year from 2024 .year.

As with IBM, SAP chief executive Christian Klein said the cuts are related to the company’s strategy of focusing on areas where it expects to grow more, and not to the company’s economic performance.

Similarly, SAP is shifting to a greater focus on cloud services.

Though both firms denied the cuts were related to difficulties in the global business environment or a drop in their profits, the layoffs coincide with a series of similar moves at other big tech firms.

Google’s parent tech company Alphabet announced last week it was laying off 12,000 employees, accounting for 6% of its global workforce, admitting there have been hiring processes in recent years that, while appropriate to their moment, are have proved excessive in the current economic situation.

Google’s layoffs this month are joined by 10,000 (5 percent of its total plant) from Microsoft and 18,000 from e-commerce firm Amazon.

Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – anticipated in November that it will lay off 11,000 workers, 13% of its workforce.

Similarly, tycoon Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has laid off about 3,700 employees (50% of positions); and Snapchat and Salesforce did the same with 1,200 (30%) and 7,000 (10%).

In total, 219,132 people have been laid off in the tech sector since last year, according to the Layoffs.fyi tracking page, which compiles various job announcements. cuts.