IBM announces 1,700 layoffs
Tech company IBM has announced that it will lay off around 1,700 employees from several of its branches in different locations as part of a restructuring plan to give more focus to the high-value segments of the IT market. The job cut will affect around 0.5% of the company’s 340,000 workforce. The company said it will add more staff in newer and key areas to offer higher value service to customers. IBM has streamlined its operations by shifting from traditional businesses to newer and more lucrative business segments such as cloud and data analytics. The company’s revenues in the first quarter of this year stood at USD18.18bn, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of USD18.52bn and declining 4.7% year-on-year. The year-on-year decline is primarily due to currency fluctuations and headwinds from the IBM Z product cycle. Softness in the Asia-Pacific emerging markets has also affected the top-line performance. In addition, intense competition in the cloud computing and data analytics segments has also affected IBM’s revenues.
