IBM to fire 5,000 US workers; India to benefit

International Business Machines Corp plans to lay off about 5,000 US employees, with many of the jobs being transferred to India, a media report said today.

The technology giant has been steadily building its work force in India and other locations, while reducing the number of employees based in the US.

Foreign workers accounted for 71 per cent of Big Blue's nearly 400,000 employees at the start of the year, up from about 65 per cent in 2006, the Wall Street Journal said.

The latest round of cuts target the company's global business-services unit, which does everything from running corporate data centers to managing human resources for clients like Procter and Gamble, the paper reported.

Some of the jobs are being eliminated because customers have ended contracts or the company has automated tasks. But employees were quoted as saying in many cases that they have been training IBM workers from India to do work that will now be moved overseas.

An IBM spokesman, the paper said, declined to comment. The company has said it expects to spend about USD 300 million to USD 400 million on severance-related charges this year, with most of it in the first half.