Mass Layoffs (But Silent Layoffs) Still Happening in IBM, You Need Only Look Closely (There Are NDAs, PIPs, 'Early Retirement' Sweeteners and IBM - Like Microsoft - Skirts the WARN Act)
From recent hours alone (random sample):
An hour ago: (leaving next month)
Just to remove doubt/s, he is leaving IBM:
Now marked in Microsoft's LinkedIn as tentatively unemployed (the default euphemism is "OpenToWork").
We already wrote so much about the NDAs, the "last day" scripted "posts" (people follow a script, they cannot 'disparage' IBM if they want severance; they're even expressing gratitude for being sacked), and some of the ways in which IBM skirts WARN requirements and avoids WARN notices (in a nutshell, they get spread out over sites, states, countries, as well as over time to avoid hitting reporting "thresholds").
But the layoffs are definitely happening. It's colloquially called either "silent layoffs" or "forever layoffs" (trickle that never ends), with 15% of staff - or about 40,000 IBM workers - targetted for removal or "push" (e.g. PIP). Scary, isn't it? Hard to concentrate on work or do the job calmly. Nobody is safe, more so when the quotas are followed, which means people can be wrongly flagged for banishing (irrespective of actual performance, seniority, essentiality and so on).
5 days ago somebody asked about "February layoff" as if IBM layoffs are limited to particular months.
False assumption, wrong supposition.
"February is almost half over and lots we’re talking about a February layoff but I don’t hear any talk at work about it anymore. This is for usa," it said.
Well, we know about Europe also, based on the union. The layoffs are definitely happening. Everyone who gets paid well is at risk.
The responses posted so far illuminate the harsh reality: "there is the voluntary retirement (a forced lay off in disguise) for the hundreds who accepted to "retire" by the end of March 2026. The recalcitrant one were forced out at the end of last year."
Indeed, some people spoke about it in public and we heard similar stories from whistleblowers. IBM offers incentives to leave; this way it doesn't count as "layoffs". That's actually cheaper for IBM.
Some workers want to be spared the humiliation, so they pro-actively walk out.
Hours ago someone said: "I don't really see anywhere that there are mass layoffs. Also I don't see anything on the WARN. People are let go silently..maybe?"
Insiders said that IBM had many years to 'perfect' the 'art' of skirting the WARN Act - some even joking IBM has patents on that.
And "yes," said the latest comment, "usually twice a year it makes the newspapers and we have large scale US layoffs but they very rarely need to file WARN notice since they do relatively small percentages but relatively often..."
It is still going on. Last month Red Hat whistleblowers told us about what went on over there; "the news" won't speak to whistleblowers, as so-called 'journalists' can pretend (to themselves at least) that unless there's some WARN notice the whole thing is just rumour mongering, gossip etc. █