Posted on 03/25/2009 1:24:59 PM PDT by BGHater
International Business Machines (IBM: 97.89, -0.41, -0.42%), a blue-chip tech company that has managed to continue to grow despite the global recession, is expected to eliminate a large number of U.S. employees from its global-business services unit, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Weeks after slashing nearly 5,000 jobs, IBM is expected to shift the work of a large number of U.S. workers to IBM employees working in India, the latest example of a successful company that is continuing to slash costs and take advantage of cheap Asian labor, the Journal reported.
Representatives from IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. IBM tends to carry out "stealth" layoffs by avoiding public disclosure.
IBM managers have been receiving training from human-resources specialists on handling the layoffs, the Journal reported.
The layoffs could impact a sizable amount of employees, as the global-business services unit is the tech giant's largest in terms of revenue and employment, with 180,000 workers worldwide, the Journal reported.
IBM isn't alone among profitable companies cutting costs to weather the economic storm -- for example, both Microsoft (MSFT: 17.88, 0.01, 0.06%) and Caterpillar (CAT: 28.92, -0.48, -1.63%) announced plans earlier this year to slash 5,000 jobs each.
However, the apparent cost-cutting moves for IBM come as the company is said to be in talks to take over rival tech company Sun Microsystems (JAVA: 7.85, -0.26, -3.21%) for up to $8 billion.
The latest layoffs will only add to an already bleak labor picture in the U.S., which has been stuck in a recession since Dec. 2007. Last week the Labor Department said jobless claims filed by people out of work for more than one week soared by 185,000 to 5.47 million. The U.S. unemployment rate stands at 8.1% -- the highest level since Dec. 1983.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
And LOWER corporate taxes.
One more reason to avoid IBM. I am so tired of trying to understand “Guptha” from Bangladesh. Buy American.
OBAMA LIED, THE ECONOMY DIED.
Hey America, this is why jobs go overseas. It’s a Democrat thing. Get used to it.
It’s gotta be the sugar tariff doing it.
I’m used to it. It’s fun watching these companies do a John Galt moment on the Fascist socialists.
I thought his name was "Fred".
The real answer is to make America more business friendly. Why should business stay here and be taxed and regulated to death? If you ran a business and you could contract to an American company and an overseas firm for supplies and the foreign supplies were half the price which would you choose?
Government conditions have chased business out of country, using government to try to keep them in will just create more problems.
With the lynch mob mentality surrounding the AIG bonuses (given according to contract, legally, and for work done) may cause a brain drain in the US imo.
They are, have been and will continue to move to lower regulation, taxes and wages. Though it ticks me off, can’t say I blame them. But they are also not taking into account other risks of doing that you can’t put dollars on unless you factor in the chance of losing PP & E to the foreign government you move your operations to.
And with 0, they might lose PP & E here too!
Perhaps our collapsing dollar will stem the tide somewhat.
Do any computer companies have ANY US based employees? Every time I’ve called with a computer question I need a friggin translator to understand the “english” I hear back.
How any company functions in Occupied America is beyond me: massive corporate taxes, armies of crooked, looting lawyers, a corrupt judiciary, and hateful bureaucratic hyper-regulation.
Notice that most of once 100% USA jobs at IBM are now outside of Occupied America.
I guess they need to update their recent commercial series on “I’m an IBM’er” to get more of that sub-continent sing-song inflection.
I always ask them who won the 1941 World series.
this prob isn’t worth its own thread....
White House Reaches Out To CEOs On Foreign-Profits Tax Plan
Last update: 3/25/2009 4:43:58 PM
By Martin Vaughan
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)—Top Obama administration economic aides are reaching out to corporate CEOs on an issue that cuts very close to their bottom lines — a promise by President Obama to raise taxes on their overseas income.
Treasury Secretary Geithner, White House National Economic Council Chair Lawrence Summers and White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett hosted a conference call Tuesday with CEOs to discuss Obama’s intention, included in his 10-year budget plan, to roll back tax benefits now enjoyed by U.S. multinational firms.
Top executives from IBM (IBM), Citigroup (C), United Technologies (UTX), Motorola (MOT), Honeywell (HON), General Electric (GE), Google (GOOG) and Procter and Gamble (PG), among others, participated in the call, according to people with knowledge of the discussion.
The call seems designed to smooth the waters with business chiefs, or at least open a dialogue with them, as multinational companies are marshaling their forces to fight Obama’s plan on Capitol Hill.
Two hundred companies and trade associations wrote to congressional leaders Tuesday, calling on them to reject Obama’s push.
At issue is the firms’ ability to defer paying taxes indefinitely on active business income earned abroad, a cherished perk known as “deferral.” Under current law, U.S. taxes aren’t due on that income as long as it is re-invested in foreign operations. If it is returned to the U.S., it is subject to the U.S. corporate income tax of 35%.
“American companies require only a level playing field in international tax policy,” the companies wrote Tuesday. “Unfortunately, the administration’s proposal to repeal ‘deferral’ would impose a unilateral tax on the foreign earnings of American companies. . . This will result in a loss of jobs for Americans and serious negative impacts on the U.S. economy.”
The discussion over hiking taxes on multinational firms is against the backdrop of record budget deficits and an ambitious agenda from the White House on health care and energy initiatives that may require new revenue to make it through Congress. Company execs are eager to see that their firms do not wind up footing the bill for that agenda through increased taxes.
According to people briefed on the telephone discussion with Summers and Geithner, the officials stressed that Obama aims to reduce deferral tax benefits, not scrap them completely. They indicated that one proposal under consideration is a plan from U.S. House Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., that would disallow tax deductions associated with overseas activity, until the firms actually pay the tax on overseas profits.
The Rangel plan is not technically the same as outright repeal of deferral, but some business lobbyists say it goes almost as far.
The telephone briefing was a follow-up to a March 12 public exchange between Obama and Business Roundtable CEOs, in which IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano asked Obama to seek the advice of the business community on international tax proposals.
The Obama budget proposal included no specifics on what changes the administration would seek to taxing overseas profits. Treasury officials have said detailed proposals will be forthcoming. The Treasury “Blue Book,” a more detailed description of revenue proposals in the president’s budget, is expected to be released in late April.
But it wasn’t immediately clear whether that expectation is affected by Wednesday’s announcement that a task force under the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, will craft options for a broad tax code overhaul by Dec. 4 of this year.
Why go back so far - go ahead and ask them who won the 2008 World Series, same difference.
Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that obama is using the full power of the federal government to crush American businesses, could it?
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