According to a statement Wednesday by Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro, 697 IBM employees at sites in Dutchess County are losing their jobs. The Poughkeepsie location is pictured here.Times Herald-Record
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and MICHAEL LEVENSOHN
POUGHKEEPSIE ? Hundreds of local IBMers were laid off Wednesday, as Big Blue slashed staffing across the globe to improve its financial results.
IBM does not release information regarding the size and scope of layoffs, but according to a statement by Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro, 697 IBM employees at sites in Dutchess County are losing their jobs.
Molinaro cited IBM's correspondence with the Dutchess County Workforce Investment Board as the source of the number. "Specifically, IBM Poughkeepsie will see a reduction of 328 employees and IBM East Fishkill will see a reduction of 369 employees," the statement said. "The last day of employment for the affected employees will be no earlier than September 10th, 2013."
The layoffs began Tuesday in the Systems and Technology Group at IBM's Poughkeepsie plant, according to Tom Midgley, the president of Alliance@IBM, an organization seeking to unionize Big Blue employees. By Wednesday, additional employees had been laid off at a semiconductor research and development center in East Fishkill, he said.
Alliance@IBM was in the process Wednesday of adding up layoffs at sites across the country, based on information provided by IBM employees. The group asks employees to forward information from their severance packages, so Alliance can come to an estimate, Midgley said.
"When the dust settles a bit, the numbers will start to come together a bit more," Midgley said, adding that employees were saying Wednesday that this round of layoffs is "pretty big."
IBM generally does not disclose its employee count or layoff totals. Doug Shelton, an IBM spokesman, said in a prepared statement Wednesday that the technology industry constantly changes and that "some level of workforce remix is a constant requirement" for IBM.
Based on the most recent estimates available, it is believed that IBM employed roughly 9,000 people in Poughkeepsie, East Fishkill and Sterling Forest in Orange County before these latest cuts.
Midgley said Wednesday evening that he hadn't heard of any cuts in Sterling Forest.
According to Molinaro's statement, laid-off workers' separation packages include severance, continued benefits and outplacement and retraining services.
IBMers have been waiting for the ax to swing since early this year, when Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge said in a conference call with investors and analysts that upcoming layoffs would be part of the company's "2013 transformation." In another conference call in April, he said the cuts would be concentrated in the second quarter to improve the company's financial results for the year.
Big Blue missed estimates for revenue and earnings per share in the first quarter. Loughridge said that the layoffs, also called "workforce rebalancing" by IBM, would mostly happen outside the United States.
A 35-year-old man from New Windsor was one of the many who lost their jobs at IBM in East Fishkill. He said in an email that his manager asked him to come in on Wednesday, his day off. When he reported to work, he was let go.
jdinapoli@th-record.com
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