It appears that the season of layoffs is still not over as this layoff club is recently joined by the technology major, IBM once again this year.
IBM Layoffs Employees In Marketing And Communications Division
IBM has announced that they are laying off employees from its marketing and communications divisions although the company is yet to mention the exact numbers.
IBM reportedly laid off employees in the company’s marketing and communications division.
The timing to break out this news was impeccable as the decision of layoffs was disclosed in a seven-minute meeting by the chief communications officer at IBM, Jonathan Adashek, in the presence of the employees in the department.
So far, the company did not release the information officially in this regard.
It seems that the media reported IBM layoffs citing unnamed sources.
Last year, the company’s CEO Arvind Krishna said that IBM expects to pause hiring for roles which could be replaced with artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming years.
Further adding that hiring in back-office functions such as human resources will be suspended or slowed “I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”
“The company is likely to spend the same amount on restructuring as it did last year which was $400 million when it reduced its workforce by about 3,900 jobs,” said IBM’s Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh, during January this year.
The report indicates that IBM has invited its employees to opt for voluntary redundancy as part of a strategic initiative involving layoffs, particularly focusing on positions located in Europe.
This initiative by IBM is seen as “transformative” rather than financial since 80% of this reduction target is directed towards Enterprise Operations & Support (EO&S) and Q2C missions and also towards Finance & Operations.
Paytm Layoffs – Anticipated Team Size Reduction By 20%
In another such development, Paytm parent company One 97 Communications seems to be all set to reduce its workforce across departments under its annual performance review program, as per the media report.
Interestingly, this move comes as the fintech unicorn’s payment banks face scrutiny from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for lapses in due diligence.
Again, the exact number of affected employees remains undisclosed.
But, there are talks that some departments have been asked to reduce team size by up to 20 percent over the last two weeks.
The news is acknowledged by a Paytm spokesperson that the ongoing appraisal cycle might result in performance-based job cuts, but no words on the number of affected employees.
Further adding that rather than the performance exercise, more jobs would be affected by the company’s push towards artificial intelligence-powered automation.
In 2024, almost 204 companies including IBM have announced job cuts as per the layoffs.fyi website which have affected 49,978 employees and we are barely reaching the mid of March.
