IBM Layoffs: Latest 2009 job cuts

IBM (NYSE:IBM) has announced its latest round of job cuts for 2009, and it amounts to 4 percent of its U.S. workforce. The amount of jobs going will be 5,000; this is on top of similar cuts in recent months.

According to Information Weekly, Reuters has been told by a number of sources that these cuts will be mostly in IBM’s global services business, this includes consulting and outsourcing services. IBM did have a workforce of 398,455 at the end of 2008, but that figure is now much lower, IBM has not disclosed the amount of jobs that have gone since then.

The news of these latest rounds of IBM job cuts comes at the time when the company is in talks to purchase Sun Microsystems Inc (JAVA); such a move would create a clear leader in the high-end computer server market.

These are worrying times for all of us, the auto industry has to be one of the worst hit, a number of automakers who used to make such huge profit margin are now having to cut its workforce. Some are also having to take pay cuts, such as BMW employees.