IBM sacks 300 Employees From Services Division: Report

New Delhi: US tech major IBM’s India arm has sacked nearly 300 people from its services division, according to a report in an economic daily.

“A majority of these employees were in software services roles. They were let go as IBM focuses on emerging technology capabilities and reduces exposure to traditional services,” said a report in the Economic Times

Following the report of the sackings in the media, the American IT giant on Tuesday claimed this was part of its exercise to “re-invent” itself to meet the “changing requirements” of the business.

"IBM has been in India for over 25 years and remains committed to being an essential part of its growth. IBM's strategy is to re-invent itself to better meet the changing requirements of our business and to pioneer new high value technologies," the company said in a statement.

Meanwhile, industry sources told IANS that the number of sackings may not be “that big” and was probably in the "low triple-digit" range.

According to reports, the IT company is said to be looking at adding “fresh” talent who can handle emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cloud services etc.

 “This in accordance with IBM’s strategy to re-invent itself to better meet the changing requirements of our business and to pioneer new high-value services. And we remain committed to being an essential part of India’s growth”, an IBM official told the financial daily.

It may be recalled that last year, a ProPublica and Mother Jones investigation on IBM’s hiring and firing practice had found that the global IT major had adopted hiring practices that favoured younger workers while laying off or forcing the retirement of about 20,000 employees aged over 40 in the US. The probe was based on a review of internal company documents, public records as well as questionnaires and interviews with over 1,000 former IBM employees.

As per the probe, IBM reportedly laid off older workers only to re-hire them later as contractors to perform the same duties at a lower pay and no benefits.

The IBM sackings come after media reported sackings of about 600 ‘older’ employees from another US tech major, Cognizant.

Cognizant has also fired nearly 600 ‘mid-level’ and ‘senior’ employees in recent times, saying they could not adjust to the "changing environment" of the company, as per media reports. Last year itself, 200 senior executives were sacked in India. A year ago, the company had offered voluntary retirement to 400 employees.