IBM is to slash more than 70 consulting jobs in its Australia and New Zealand operations in a move the tech giant said yesterday was not connected to the 10,000 to 13,000 global redundancies announced earlier this month.
Across the two southern Pacific nations, IBM employs around 2000 workers in its consulting division.
Around 70 jobs are expected to go in Australia, but only two staff will be made redundant in New Zealand.
Speculation has been rife about where exactly the restructuring axe will fall in Europe after IBM made its announcement earlier this month, raising fears that it would impact badly on the IBM plant at Greenock, Renfrewshire, and the 2300 workers there.
The latest indications are that at least 100 jobs will be axed at Greenock, but no confirmation has been offered by the company.
IBM's Greenock operation, which once manufactured PCs and employed almost 6000 workers, is now almost entirely dedicated to global services, which takes over computerroom operations for other companies and provides consulting, repair and help-desk operations.
Mark Loughridge, chief financial officer at IBM, said previously the changes would be implemented by July 4, subject to the completion of a consultation process - although most expect to know the fate of their employment status by the middle of next month.
The Herald learned earlier this month that a voluntary redundancy programme was already operating throughout the UK.
Meanwhile, reports emerged yesterday that around 50 former IBM employees based in China have resigned since the $1.75bn purchase of Big Blue's PC division was announced last December.
The article in Digitimes, which was widely reported on the internet, claims that the figure represents about one third of the employees at IBM China.
The Digitimes article also said that IBM had been losing market share in notebooks in China during the last two quarters, with HP taking the lead.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article