IBM sacks 300 IT service professionals in shift of technology focus
14 May 2019
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In a fresh shock to Indian IT professionals, IBM has sacked around 300 employees from its IT service division as the technology giant reinvents itself and to fulfil the changing demand of customers.
These employees, most of them from software service roles, were let go as IBM focuses on emerging technology capabilities and reduces exposure to traditional services.
The company is looking at absorbing fresh talent trained for technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud, among others. IBM is also retraining and helping existing employees to reskill in these areas to meet the growing demand.
IT service companies, saddled with a workforce trained only for programming jobs, are increasingly finding it difficult to cater to emerging areas of business involving artificial intelligence, cloud computing etc.
US-based technology firm Cognizant recently announced the management is evaluation an employee separation programme among other strategies, as part of their realignment programme.
Most of these job cuts involve middle level professionals and this could render many jobless as they rarely get a retraining option.
A report by McKinsey & Company had suggested that nearly half of the workforce in the IT services firms is likely to become irrelevant by 2020-21. It had suggested that the Indian IT service players may have to re-skill significant chunks of their workforce to drive upcoming digital technology transformation.
Given the extent of the shift in technology over the past few years, big IT firms have to re-train more than half of their existing workforce. The McKinsey report says a majority of the 3.9 million people employed in IT service companies across various levels will have to be retrained.
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