MARK Loughridge, the chief financial officer of IBM, yesterday named the UK, Italy, France and Germany as the nations that will face the brunt of its European restructuring axe - again raising fears of hefty job losses at the tech giant's Renfrewshire operation.

Late on Wednesday night IBM announced that it will slash between 10,000 and 13,000 jobs in Europe.

When asked specifically yesterday the extent to which the restructuring would impact on Big Blue's plant and the 2300 workers remaining at Greenock, the company declined to comment.

"We are still working with work councils and consulting with employee organisations, " Loughridge said.

He added that the changes will be implemented by July 4, subject to the completion of a consultation process.

The cutbacks come after IBM posted disappointing quarterly earnings last month and the price of its shares dropped - although it began eliminating jobs in Europe even before that.

In March it sacked 500 Swedish workers, 9-per cent of its work force there, and shut down most operations in five cities. It is understood that the company also plans to close two sites in Germany, and transfer some of the work to lower-cost operations in eastern Europe.

The Herald learned earlier this week that a voluntary redundancy programme had already been instigated at operations throughout the UK, although the complete closure of the Greenock plant has never been a serious consideration.

The Greenock operation once manufactured PCs and employed almost 6000 workers. It is now almost entirely dedicated to global services, which takes over computerroom operations for other companies and provides consulting, repair and helpdesk functions.

Earlier this week, Chinese computer maker Lenovo completed the dollars-1.75bn purchase of IBM's PC division, a move which reduced the Greenock headcount from 2800.

Loughridge portrayed the cuts as an evolution in its strategy to reduce bureaucracy in lower-growth countries and globalise operations by moving back-office work, such as accounting and procurement, to lower-cost locations and pruning operations in highcost markets.

Its strategy appears to ref lect the modern course of many western economies, as IBM depends less on manufacturing and moves up the economic ladder to aiding corporate customers in their use of information technology.

"It is no secret that there has been a period of soft economic conditions in Europe, " Loughridge said.

The job cuts, he added, will be mostly in European administrative centres that were set up in the post-war years to serve the fast-growing markets.

Those national and regional centres were now being dismantled. Greenock, to a degree, falls into that category - although in many ways the plant has also evolved with IBM, a situation which may yet soften the blow of the restructuring axe.

Nonetheless, the move will likely see redundancies among dozens of high-level regional managers.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive yesterday said: "Ministers have been in touch with IBM in the last week or so and have received assurances that there is no significant threat to Greenock.

Officials have contacted the company and have been assured that the position has not changed."

When questioned further on whether "significant threat" referred to job cuts or the unlikely complete closure of the plant, the spokeswoman declined to offer clarification.

An IBM spokesman said all major European countries will be involved in the restructuring. He added: "The reductions will not be focused on any one particular country."

The cuts are expected to impact between 3-per cent and 4-per cent of IBM's 329,000 global work force. IBM said it would take a pre-tax charge of between dollars-1.3bn and dollars-1.7bn associated with the cuts in the second quarter.