IBM server jobs slashed

In what looks to be the first in a spate of long-expected lay-offs, IBM yesterday admitted it had cut around 220 jobs, primarily from its server division.

The bulk of the cuts were made at IBM's plant in Endicott, New York, although further cuts in the server division are rumoured to be on the cards.

Around 1,000 jobs in IBM's server group are expected to be cut in total.

IBM have yet to announce the cuts formally and would not give details of any further cuts set to happen at the company.

Although there are reductions set for other locations as well as the Endicott plant they will be limited to US operations only, according to IBM spokeswoman Carol Makovich.

"The action taken today was driven by efforts to achieve greater efficiency by eliminating redundancy and consolidating operations," said Makovich.

At the Endicott plant more details were forthcoming. Lay-offs at the facility affected about 5 per cent of the 4,500 total workforce.

The plant develops software for IBM's iSeries servers and zSeries mainframes.Most of jobs cut belong to designers of software for those systems, according to Todd Martin, IBM spokesman at the Endicott plant.

Martin said that up to half of those laid off yesterday would be offered other jobs within IBM.

The cuts are thought to be the start of a new wave of job losses to come at IBM following last week's statements from chief executive Sam Palmisano suggesting that the company would seek to follow its 6 per cent drop in quarterly revenue with a 6 per cent cut in jobs.

That is equivalent to 20,000 employees. Palmisano said that around 15,000 of those job losses would be achieved through normal attrition.