Good Explanation of Why IBM Has Chosen to Conceal Mass Layoffs (of 'Expensive' Staff) as "R.T.O." (Even For People Who Never Worked at the Office to Which They're Ordered to "Return")
9 days ago: IBM Layoffs in 'RTO' Clothing Reported by Thomas Claburn
For some, 'RTO' means going to another state/city, uprooting an entire family and/or selling a home (without even guarantee of keeping the job for more than a few months after moving!): Companies Faking the True Number of Layoffs With Return-to-Office Mandates and Forced Relocation
Today:
Thomas Claburn of The Register has done a good job documenting IBM lawsuits and layoffs (many lawsuits over stuff like discrimination against older workers). His latest article, which was published in spite of IBM paying The Register, spoke of "IBM's broader return-to-office plan" (read: 'soft layoffs') and said it "hits older, more expensive staff hard" (as usual, very much as intended).
An hour ago somebody left this insightful long comment (seen above, too): "I’m confused What do you think has been happening in NA and Northern Europe for the last 10 years? Both areas are down 80% of their 10 year ago headcount, while India employment has gone from 30k to 150k over the last 10 years. There is a reason they have targeted RTO workers this time around. They are the only guys left standing after all of the previous rightsizing purges. There is a second reason for making it an RTO. IBM knows 85% of the employees impacted will not move, but rather take the buyout. We have reached the “who’s left standing” part of the restructuring which involves multiple organizations with different skill sets, ages, locations, etc etc. So how do you find a common layoff strategy for all of the organizations? Bean counters settled on the RTO strategy as it fit the bill nicely, and you already know within a 100 or so heads what the outcome is going to be. Remember the goal is to make NA and Northern Europe skeleton crews as low cost labor (cost take out) is job 1. That is the lesson learned from spinning off of GTS to Kyndryl."
Europe is being hit hard this year [1, 2]. Many remaining IBM (or Red Hat) workers in Europe are in "cheaper" places such as Brno. IBM is "financialization" in motion. █
