IBM denies “ridiculous” rumours about 110,000 job cuts

The technology giant has denied rumours that it will be cutting over a quarter of its workforce.

Last week Forbes published an article about ‘Project Chrome’ – the biggest reorganisation in IBM’s history. Stating that “customers and employees alike should expect the worst” as the company was looking to cut 26% of its workforce.

The article continued: “One in four IBMers reading this column will probably start looking for a new job next week. Those employees will all be gone by the end of February.”

However, IBM has denied rumours that up to 110,000 jobs will be cut from its 430,000 workforce. In an email statement to Reuters, the technology company says: “IBM does not comment on rumours, even ridiculous or baseless ones, if anyone had checked information readily available from our public earnings statements, or had simply asked us, they would know that IBM has already announced the company has just taken a $600million charge for workforce rebalancing. This equates to several thousand people, a small fraction of what's been reported.”

A similar message has been published on the company’s official Hong Kong blog, which goes on to say: “Last year, IBM hired 45,000 people, and the company currently has about 15,000 job openings around the world for new skills in growth areas such as cloud, analytics, security, and social and mobile technologies. This is evidence that IBM continues to remix its skills to match where we see the best opportunities in the marketplace.”