IBM cuts thousands of jobs worldwide

Thousands of IBM employees worldwide received layoff notices Wednesday.

Alliance@IBM, an IBM employees labor union, stated that approximately ten positions at Columbia’s data center were eliminated.

“So far, there’s over 2,200 workers that have been fired and our sources tell us at least ten at the Columbia, Missouri facility,” said Lee Conrad, Alliance@IBM’s national coordinator.

Conrad said the data center currently employs 537 workers. He said additional layoffs may happen this year.

There is no official word from the company, though.

Numerous calls to IBM corporate offices and Missouri’s Department of Economic Development about the data center’s layoffs and whether the company is meeting requirements for incentives were not returned.

Based on a $1 billion cost-cutting figure IBM announced earlier this year, the company could lay off between 6,000 to 8,000 employees worldwide.

As of Wednesday evening, the labor organization Alliance@IBM reported it received individual reports of layoffs in Vermont, Massachusetts, New York and North Carolina.

Back in 2010, IBM, along with city and state leaders, announced the creation of IBM’s Information Technology Service Delivery Center on Lemone Industrial Boulevard. The company told the city and state it would hire up to 800 employees.

The city bought the building for $3.2 million and is leasing it to the company for just one dollar a year.

The state is also offering the company more than $28 million in incentives.