IBM cuts keep growing; union exec 'at a loss' to predict if more are coming

These additions push to 2,552 across 23 groups. The employees were “RA’d” – Big Blue slang for being laid off – starting Monday. And what happens next is unpredictable, according to Lee Conrad with Alliance@IBM.

“I am at a loss right now to guess,” said the retired IBMer, who worked at the company for 26 years, when asked if more layoff news is coming. “It is possible.”

The Alliance@IBM Web site has been flooded with reports and comments from IBM employees about the layoffs.

While IBM cut 10,000 employees in 2009, many came in small actions.

But the size of Monday’s wave caught Conrad by surprise, even though he had been predicting that a “resource action” was planned.

“This is the biggest one-day cut I have seen in a long time,” he told Local Tech Wire and WRAL.com. “It is very disturbing, considering it doesn't have to happen. Many of these workers are losing their jobs because IBM sees no value in employing American workers."

IBM reported record profits for 2009 despite the global recession and a decline in revenues.

The running total of IBM cuts by work group as reported through Alliance@IBM:

• Total cut so far: 2,552