IBM Calls Massive Pink Slip Reports ‘Ridiculous’

IBM (IBM) officially dismissed a spate of reports it will layoff up to 26 percent of its worldwide workforce, or more than 100,000 workers, starting this week, calling the rumors “ridiculous” and “baseless.”

Here’s IBM’s official word:

“IBM does not comment on rumors, even ridiculous or baseless ones. If anyone had checked information readily available from our public earnings statements, or had simply asked us, they would know that IBM has already announced the company has just taken a $600 million charge for workforce rebalancing. This equates to several thousand people, a mere fraction of what’s been reported.

“Last year, IBM hired 45,000 people, and the company currently has about 15,000 job openings around the world for new skills in growth areas such as cloud, analytics, security, and social and mobile technologies. This is evidence that IBM continues to remix its skills to match where we see the best opportunities in the marketplace.”

For 2014, IBM took charges against earnings of $870 million in the first quarter and $580 in the fourth, a total of nearly $1.5 billion for employee terminations. IBM fired some 10,000 employees this time last year, only eight months after a June 2013 “workforce remix.” And, historically speaking, the vendor is the title holder for the largest layoff in history, at 60,000 employees in 1993.

In some circles, IBM’s response to the layoff reports might be termed a “non-denial denial.” In other words, IBM didn’t deny a layoff is in the works but waved off reports of a gargantuan firing.

Other reports are starting to appear that the number of IBM workers affected by the layoffs will be far fewer than initially rumored. CNBC, for example, reported the layoff will be “only” 10,000 employees, perhaps even less.

Robert Cringely, who authored the original story, told CNNMoney that he’s not dissuaded by IBM’s response.

“From what I’ve seen so far IBM is mainly calling me names, which means nothing,” Cringely said. “There’s a huge layoff coming on Wednesday. The numbers I’ve seen are from 24% to 27%.”

At the IBM employee forum Alliance@IBM, as expected workers are posting furiously on the rumored layoffs. Many employees have complained about receiving poor performance ratings in the latest evaluations, a signal to some that IBM intends to fire employees for what’s said to be subpar work and that the alleged layoffs won’t be based on so-called “resource actions,” or RA’s—IBM speak for large-scale job reductions.

As of Monday, here’s the Alliance’s latest word on the layoffs:

“The Alliance has no information that this is true and we are urging caution on reporting this number as fact. But as you all know, anything can happen at IBM anymore and this is the time of year that IBM cuts jobs. Our job cuts reports section is filled with employee comments on being downgraded in their work evaluations (PBC) and slated for individual firings.”

And more:

“From previous comments on this board, it appears that there WON’T be the ‘usual RA,’ in the US. IBM is planning on firing a large number of employees for poor performance, based on all the PBC 3’s that are being issued along with a PIP. This lets IBM avoid the WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification), and million$ paid out for separation pkgs.”

The Alliance@IBM said IBM’s U.S. headcount has fallen from 237,000 in 1986 to some 83,000 in 2014.

We’ll keep you posted as the fur continues to fly.