In October, IBM offered to buy out some employees. The company will notsay how many employees accepted the plan, but says some cost-cutting layoffs are unavoidable. Even though unemployment is low in the Triangle, high-tech workers are at a premium.
It's a worldwide effort by IBM to streamline. Tuesday, the company started laying off employees in its local networking hardware division.News like this is usually bad news for the local economy, but it's nottoday, not in this job market.
Big blue is being tight lipped about how many employees will be laid off and how many will take a company buy-out offer. For the employees who areasked to leave, job consultants say they shouldn't be jobless very long.
"I wouldn't lose any sleep," explains technology consultant RobertCaulfield. "There's a lot of companies hiring people. There is acandidate shortage."
Experts say the news that IBM is beginning its local layoffs should bebalanced with another part of the paper, the classifieds. One look insideand you'll find loads of companies looking for information technology professionals
According to Caulfield, there are twice as many openings than peoplecoming out of college. That's how serious the information technologymarket is.
Many employees will stay at IBM in a different position. IBM says thetotal number of employees at their RTP facility should stay about thesame. IBM has shuffled its deck before, and it will happen again. But ina technology job market that is very pro-applicant, workers shouldn't beworried as long as they stay current with their job skills.
Many companies are using contractors to fill jobs, that way the companydoesn't have to pay for employee benefits. But there are so manycontractors looking for qualified applicants now that most of them offertheir own benefits package to attract new help.
The bottom line: if you're in the information technology profession, you're in the hottest profession around.
IBM's layoffs are part of a company-wide downsizing. Monday between450 and 500 workers in Charlotte realized they'd no longer be with bigblue.
This current work force reduction isn't as large as the one in the early90's. Four years ago, 63,000 employees were laid off or agreed to thecompany's buy-out plan.
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