IBM layoff 700 employees (IBM fires freshers)

Its more and more bad news in the Indian IT markets. After TCS went for a wage cut, followed by yesterday’s TCS layoffof 500 employees citing reasons of non-performance, it’s now the turn of other biggies in the market.

IBM has fired 700 freshers again citing the reason for non-performance. Don’t wonder if “IBM job Cuts” or “IBM layoff” or “IBM fires employees” becomes another popular search term in India. It is learnt that the so called freshers, were asked to appear for an aptitude test, failing which they were asked to leave.

As per the news (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/IBM_dismisses_700_freshers_in_India/rssarticleshow/2749778.cms):

This may literally be a bolt from Big Blue! IBM is learnt to have delivered the pink slip to a sizeable chunk of its entry-level trainee programmers (ELTPs) across major offices in India.

Most of these ELTPs, who were engineering graduates, had put in nearly a year and were working in numerous technology practice groups under IBM India’s global delivery business.

Though IBM is silent on the actual number of ELTPs dismissed, the total is likely to be in excess of 700 across company locations nationally, including 180-odd in Kolkata alone.

ELTPs, who were essentially freshers, were asked to go based on their performance in aptitude tests that were recently conducted in undisclosed IBM India locations. It is learnt that action on the ELTP front in major IBM locations was an ultra hush-hush exercise about which many senior IBM managers were in the dark.

At present, the IBM India management is reluctant to go into the details of its latest HR exercise. But in a written response to ET’s email query, an IBM spokesperson said, “IBM is driven by a high-performance culture, a place where employees are able to contribute at the upper limits of their potential and continually build market-valued skills and capabilities in both formal training and experiential learning. In support of that expectation on the part of our workforce, we are pioneering new ways for our people to certify their skill levels as both a validation of their value to clients and to reinforce the quality of our employees’ personal skill sets.”

What can be said about this development? I really don’t know. It’s all looking a bad time –especially for the entry level software engineers. I hope there are sufficient vacancies in the industry to absorb those laid off by TCS and IBM, and the trend does not continue further. Let’s hope for the best

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