Silent Layoffs at IBM: Still Using PIPs to Hide Full Scope and Extent of Layoffs
October 2025: IBM Allegedly Found New Tricks for Silent Layoffs: LPI, Then MIS (Not PIP)
At IBM, the scale of the layoffs is hidden in all sorts of ways. One is, of course, causing people to resign (that's what those "last days" are often all about). Failing that, they'll get fired under the guise of poor performance (under an insulting pretext with an ultimatum such as PIP). When the media asks IBM's spokespeople about "RAs" it gets an incomplete picture. To be clear, PIPs are typically impossible to fulfil, even by their very design. It's an HR 'hack'. It torments workers; they either fail or they 'proactively' decide to 'leave'. Survival is a rare exception.
I personally do not believe in long posts (or articles) but in posts that get to the point and are as concise as feasible (while including all the necessary background), so let's get to the point and discuss this new comment:
This is the sort of story told by many others. PIPs are not really about performance (the "P" in there; the acronym as a whole is hogwash) and many who are targeted would be considered based on parameters like age or legal risk (by HR). So the workers needn't take their targeting personally; it's not really about their "value" or "performance", for elimination is often determined by the unit/project they are assigned to. They're not low performers.
So how far will IBM go?
Well, there is this good new comment on what IBM needs to do:
IBM will continue layoffs until it finds a business model that works and works reliably for many years. For the last two decades, Software, Hardware, and Services have taken turns playing the IBM not-me game. I won’t make profit, but I will amplify that other team which will directly own your profit. Without my synergy, you will surely fail, so you must keep me. Every couple years, a new profit maker is anointed and a new round of the game begins.Even if they find a model, it needs to work reliably for many years. Not so long ago at the beginning of Watson (AI), a Watson kick-off meeting was held in Austin for the entire Watson management team. The business plan presented would rapidly accelerate to stratospheric heights in 3 or better yet 2 years and remain there for 20-30 years before starting a gradual and still profitable decline. Commoditization utterly destroyed this plan and business in 18 months. Models fail even faster in 2025.
In a world of cheap vanilla-grade CPUs, RAM, networking, and storage and completely free software, it’s hard to find a higher grade product that people will pay for outside of regulated businesses. And those who do unquestionably need the value add point to the cheap stuff and demand lower pricing. And the cowards in sales fear losing 100% of their commission and decide that a steep discount benefits both them and their client.
This is nothing new; it’s just come to IBM’s corner of tech now. In the 80’s there was a battle between two consumer video storage systems: Betamax and VHS. The cheaper — in both senses — won out. There were superior alternatives to Compact Discs for audiophiles, but the CD wiped them off the market. MP3 audio compression is terrible, but it dominated the music streaming and download business for a long time.
All 3 of IBM’s pillars (Hardware, Services, and Software) have experienced their own versions of this. That’s why they play not-me. IBM has 3 future strategies. Hybrid Cloud, which can’t sustain an IBM-sized business. AI which is already deep into the commoditization spiral and has as an industry accumulated over a trillion dollars in debt. IBM has already stepped off the AI stage, preferring to serve as high-end salesmen for partners’ actual products packaged up with an IBM bow. Quantum Computing: how many non-governmental clients will actually need this capability badly enough to shoulder some risk, finance the development costs, and pay ongoing support. Quantum computing could be the opening for IBM to become the CocaCola Bottling company of tech — providing a low-profit product that makes others fabulously wealthy.
Until these things change, IBM will have to undergo periodic amputations. When it ends in one or more passes through Bankruptcy Court, then we will discover how bad things can get.
A once failing tech company called Apple righted itself for a while by leaving the tech industry and joining the fickle fashion industry. Is there another industry where centenarian IBM might fit well?
Buckle up folks … and prepare for turbulence for the duration of the flight.
At a bare minimum and as a necessary start, the leadership needs to be rebooted. Buzzwords mania won't save the company, it's about shareholders temporarily gaming the market (or "system"), compromising what's left of the brand (and company) to enrich themselves.
To many companies, shareholders aren't backers but opportunistic parasites which doom companies for short-term personal gains. █