Columbia Mayor is hopeful that IBM will meet its requirements for employement

IBM is needing over 20,000 people to fill open positions, but it is also laying off thousands in the process.

According to IBM the layoffs are due to the company’s shift in strategy from software to cloud.

The number of national layoffs are unspecified but IBM has reported they hope to fill 20,000 positions. As of now, we don’t know if the Columbia is hiring.

Columbia hasn’t had the easiest time dealing with the global company. Back in 2010, the company promised the city over 800 jobs in return for a 28 million dollar tax incentive from the state. It was a promise that IBM wasn’t ever able to fulfill result in the state suspending those tax credits and programs in 2015.

“As Mayor, we need to protect taxpayers, not only are we open for business but we need to be open for people,” Mayor Treece told ABC 17 news.

According to Mayor Treece, the city is doing good despite IBM’s troubles in the past, ” I hope we can have some great news before the end of the year.”

However the Mayor did tell ABC 17 that if Columbia were to ever get approached from another big company in the future things would be different, ” we would take a look back… if you don’t create jobs, you will pay money back to the taxpayers.”

Mayor Treece also believes that IBM needs to be more communicative and transparent, to compete for those 20 thousand new jobs.

The Department of Economic Development told ABC 17 last December that they must reach 400 new jobs by October of 2016 in order to maintain eligibility for the training program. As of now, we don’t know the number of current employees.

Missouri’s DED told ABC 17 in February of 2016 that it will check back in with IBM in August to decide whether to suspend of continue with the economic benefits.