IBM layoffs hit some Triangle workers, but it’s unclear how many jobs will be lost

Brian Gordon
·2 min read

IBM cut jobs in its marketing division this week, affecting some Research Triangle Park-based workers, as the major area employer restructures for the second straight year.

In January, IBM announced “a workforce rebalancing” that it said would impact “a very low single digit percentage” of its global staff. This week, national outlets reported jobs were slashed across IBM’s marketing and communications divisions.

IBM spokesperson Michael Cable said the company still expects to end 2024 with around the same number of employees it began the year. “This rebalancing is driven by increases in productivity and our continued push to align our workforce with skills most in-demand among our clients, especially areas such as AI and hybrid cloud,” he said in an email.

Cable declined to share how many positions lost this week were based in Research Triangle Park, where the company has operated since the 1960s. Nicknamed Big Blue, IBM is one of the Triangle’s 10 biggest employers with around 9,000 employees as of early last year, according to Wake County Economic Development. The company declined to confirm its local employment figure.

On Friday, The News & Observer spoke to a Triangle-based IBM worker who was laid off on Tuesday. Search engine optimization strategist Phil Buckley of Apex said he received the news during a meeting with his boss. Calling IBM a “dream job,” he acknowledged restructuring was a common business practice that feels unique when it happens to you.

Buckley said RTP does not have “a huge marketing cohort,” meaning it may be less affected than other markets. “They weren’t terribly forthcoming about the extent (of the cuts),” he said.

IBM employees internally refer to layoffs as “resource actions.” In January 2023, the company disclosed it would cut 3,900 positions as part of an initial rebalancing round.

The workforce moves come as Big Blue invests more in artificial intelligence, with company CEO Arvind Krishna in January telling investors, “we remain laser-focused on our productivity initiatives as we digitally transform our business processes and scale AI within IBM.”