IBM, the technology giant with around 3000 staff in Scotland, has denied reports it is on the cusp of shedding as much as a quarter of its global workforce.

 

The multinational firm has been forced to respond to claims 110,000 posts could go in a major restructure, already billed one of the biggest staff culls in history.

The influential Forbes magazine said IBM, which has sites at Edinburgh and Greenock, was "desperate to revamp its business" after three months of sales figures were hundreds of millions of pounds lower than expected.

But IBM spokesman Ian Colley said the company "flatly denies" the report and that it had previously announced lay-offs affecting "several thousand people," only "a small fraction" of the number predicted.

The company also dismissed the speculation as "stupid" and "ridiculous" and added that IBM "still makes huge profit".

Known as Big Blue for its once-ubiquitous corporate logo, IBM struggled to make the transition from manufacturing computers and microchips to the world of cloud computing.

In recent weeks it set aside around £400 million for a wave of redundancies.

Around 20,000 are employed by IBM in the UK across 24 sites, which also includes London, Manchester and Portsmouth.

The article was published last week on Forbes.com and referred to the lay-offs as "Project Chrome", which was described as "the biggest reorganisation in IBM history".

The author, a prominent technology blogger, added: "Project Chrome is finally upon us, triggered I suppose by this week's announcement of an 11th consecutive quarter of declining revenue for IBM. Customers and employees alike should expect the worst."

The blogger has also respond to the denial, accusing IBM of "fixating on the term 110,000 layoffs, which by the way I never used", adding: "Whatever the word, what counts is how many fewer people will be paid by IBM on 1 March compared to today."

An IBM spokesman said: "IBM does not comment on rumours, even ridiculous or baseless ones.

"IBM has already announced the company has just taken a $600 million charge for workforce rebalancing. This equates to several thousand people, a mere fraction of what's been reported."

The company refused to add whether any of the jobs going would be at either of its two Scottish bases.