IBM plans to lay off 8,000 people worldwide. It has already started.

IBM plans to lay off 8,000 people worldwide. It has started. According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter revealed that IBM has started laying off employees across the United States this Wednesday. This is...

According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter revealed that IBM has begun laying off employees across the United States on Wednesday, which is part of the company’s plan to reduce US$1 billion in expenditures worldwide.

The person familiar with the matter said that IBM’s targets for layoffs involve employees at all levels. Lee Conrad, coordinator of the labor organization Alliance@IBM, also confirmed the news. Conrad revealed that starting on Tuesday, some IBM employees in the United States have received layoff notices.

IBM announced a layoff plan in April after disappointing first-quarter 2013 results. IBM said at the time that layoffs were mainly concentrated overseas rather than in the United States.

Laurence Balter, an analyst at Oracle Investment Research, a Washington state investment research institution, pointed out that IBM plans to cut costs by US$1 billion through layoffs. Based on the industry's compensation standards, IBM may eventually lay off 6,000 to 8,000 employees worldwide.

As of December 31, 2012, the total number of IBM employees was 434,246, which means that the number of layoffs will be close to 2% of the total number of IBM employees.

An IBM spokesperson said: "In the technology industry, personnel changes are common, and transformation is also part of the company's business model. Therefore, reorganizing employees is a decision made by the company based on business needs. In view of IBM's leading position in the industry, we will not announce the specific details of this personnel adjustment."