IBM axes 13,000 jobs

IBM was announcing details of massive job cuts today, with the main axe falling in Europe.

The US-based computer giant plans to axe 13,000 posts - four per cent of its worldwide workforce.

There are growing fears for the 2,500 jobs at its facility in Greenock, Scotland. IBM employs 25,000 people in the UK out of a total of 100,000 in Europe. The group has more than 30 offices and factories in Britain ranging from Plymouth to Edinburgh.

Its major facilities in the South-East include Tivoli at Sefton in Buckinghamshire, Croydon, Farnborough, Stevenage and Weybridge.

Details of the job cuts were expected to be announced at lunchtime, with the white-collar union Amicus seeking urgent talks with management.

An Amicus spokesman said: "This is devastating news." While IBM has not said where the jobs will be lost it has blamed recent profit shortfalls on the poor performance of markets in Germany, France, Italy and Japan.

The world's largest computer company said it wanted to reduce bureaucracy and infrastructure in lower growth countries and create teams that can work across borders. It added that by shifting more employees into direct client roles it would eliminate "the need for a traditional pan-European management layer to co-ordinate activity".

Industry analysts suggested this could mean swathes of managerial staff losing their jobs on polling day in Britain.

IBM has a global workforce of 330,000, up from the low of 1994 when a decade of job cuts had reduced staff levels to 219,000.

IBM spokesman John Bukovinsky said that the company hoped most of the job cuts in Europe would be voluntary and that talks had begun with workers' councils and other bodies on the timing.

But he doubted the cuts could be achieved on a voluntary basis alone. "I don't know how they are going to get 10,000 people to quit," he said.