IBM is laying off a significant number of employees, trying to do so without attracting much attention. According to The Register, the IBM Cloud division has been the most affected by mass layoffs, with thousands of people being let go in recent days.

According to one of the publication's sources, everything is happening "in secret." They claim that a manager informed employees of the need to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) prohibiting them from discussing the details of the layoffs. However, numerous posts on forums, social media, and other platforms suggest that the layoffs are indeed substantial.

When asked about the possible layoffs, an IBM representative responded that earlier this year, the company had announced a "rebalancing" of its workforce, which would affect only a small portion of its global staff. In IBM's financial report for the first quarter of 2024, it is stated that the company will spend $400 million on "rebalancing" related to planned layoffs. By comparison, in 2023, a similar effort cost $300 million and led to the dismissal of 3,900 people.

At the same time, the company intends to end 2024 with roughly the same number of employees it started with. This is part of a business optimization process — likely, a shift in business strategy involves letting go of specialists in certain fields and hiring others. By the end of 2023, the company had 288,000 employees worldwide.

According to an IBM representative, this year, the layoffs are expected to affect only a few percentage points of the workforce. A 1% reduction would mean 2,880 employees, 2% would mean 5,760 employees, and 3% would be 8,640 employees, and so on. The Register calculated that, assuming the cost per layoff is the same as last year, IBM could lay off around 5,200 people based on the $400 million allocated for this purpose.

Last year, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna stated that the company intended to replace about 7,800 employees with AI, though he did not specify when this would happen. Now, IBM representatives are staying silent about how many people will lose their jobs and what positions will be filled in order to maintain roughly the same headcount.

According to media sources, the layoffs will primarily affect senior-level programmers, sales specialists, and support staff. However, recruitment will continue in India, where IBM has long prioritized hiring.

Additionally, sources report that the layoffs are mainly targeting employees aged 50-55 who hold high-level positions and earn high salaries. Despite past and current lawsuits related to layoffs, IBM insists that there is no systemic age discrimination in the company.