IBM Adding Almost 19,000 Jobs 386
cyngus writes "IBM has announced they will add 18,800 jobs worldwide in 2004. They say about a third will be in North America. I don't know how many they have added this year so far. After the new hires IBM will employ about 330,000 people worldwide." More good news for the unemployed techie. Although things are far from the halcyon days of dot-com yesteryear, it's good to see companies doing better.
You can feel it! (Score:4, Interesting)
Being an employed-almost-techie(analyst), I would say that it seems a serious trend since maybe 12-18 months that companies are making more and more investment in IT.
Hope this will last!
Re:You can feel it! (Score:2)
Re:You can feel it! (Score:2)
Unfortunately (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Funny)
"There were thousands of jobs created while I was president. Mind you, not the low paying service jobs like programmers and engineers, but high paying legal jobs: lawyers, paralegals, court stenographers, ...."
Hot damn (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux consulting jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Linux consulting jobs (Score:4, Funny)
Don't you mean Finnish up?
college students.. (Score:4, Interesting)
don't bet on it... (Score:2)
Williams picks IBM for business transformation [nwfusion.com]
It's called outsourcing, that's how it works.
Federal job growth numbers (Score:2, Interesting)
Go IBM, we're counting on you all the way!
Re:Federal job growth numbers (Score:2, Insightful)
-kaplanfx
Quite the turnaround for IBM. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Quite the turnaround for IBM. (Score:2)
Re:Quite the turnaround for IBM. (Score:2, Interesting)
Nah, they just didn't want to learn the IBM Song [etypewriters.com].
Stop the outsourcing (Score:5, Funny)
Stop outsourcing our great Indian jobs to North Americans!
Re:Stop the outsourcing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop the outsourcing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stop the outsourcing (Score:3, Insightful)
Did I say that it could be reversed? It's far too late to put that genie back into it's bottle. My point was that this is a side-effect that must have been totally off of corporate RADAR when the decision was made.
Wonder years. (Score:4, Insightful)
Get over it people.
**watches troll mods fly**
Re:Wonder years. (Score:2)
The present situation for software is a lot worse than those recessions -- both of which I went through.
Re:Wonder years. (Score:3, Insightful)
For the same reason that most major stories about terrorism refer to 9/11: It's a massive, world-changing event in the history of the field you're discussing, and it was less than a decade ago. As a result, current events in that field are still influenced by the wake left by that event.
Real world events aren't like TV shows; you can't just turn them off because they've gotten tedious and you're s
I guess I'm one of them (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I guess I'm one of them (Score:2)
-- Triangle Fan, Holly Springs Resident, and Licensed Mortgage Loan Officer
Re:I guess I'm one of them (Score:4, Insightful)
Laid off in RTP December 2003 (Software Group (SWG) resource action). Replaced by 5-member team in IBM India. Got work again on a scientific computing project in C + Perl running on Linux.
My friend still working for IBM in RTP reports that job postings are starting to appear in the cafeteria: "Two years programming experience, $75,000". Quite a bit of money for so little experience, right?
Curious, he investigated and saw identical listings on the Employment Security Commission website, using IBM's position titles like "Staff Software Developer", "Advisory Software Developer", etc.
Turns out there is a law on the books to explain it. Before a position can be staffed by a foreign national, it MUST be listed locally so that an American can fill the position if they qualify -- just like we expect with the H1-B visa positions. Since virtually NO American with two years' experience can qualify for a $75,000 job, the listing can't be filled locally.
Our conclusion: IBM's new SWG hires are actually just replacing existing high-paying positions into outsourced/visa'd lower-paying positions.
Are these new jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are these new jobs? (Score:3, Funny)
Also, are they hiring? I'd give up stock options for complimetary bacon any day of the week...
Re:Are these new jobs? (Score:2)
Re:Are these new jobs? (Score:2)
Weird wording of headline (Score:5, Interesting)
As a quote goes on bash.org: " There was a 23% drop in temperature. That's almost 25%! ... That was one of the most worthless comments I've ever heard."
Good news, bad news... (Score:4, Funny)
And they are all lawyers to fight SCO.
Too many already (Score:3, Informative)
It seemed that they were creating jobs just to keep people there, when I was pushing for working smarter, and laying off 70% of the staff.
I wasn't popular.
ain't gonna happen (Score:4, Interesting)
fact check : they did not. they sent a press release, but the call center offshore continued to grow. brilliant PR. make the folks think they keep jobs in america
microsoft : reported that they wuold add 5000 jobs in R & D last year
fact check : they added 3500 offshore
ibm: most of these jobs are marketing , support and admin jobs. all most all our development, qa, project management jobs have gone.
list of companies exporting jobs, after getting subsidies from tax payers: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight
Very Misleading Lou Dobbs link. (Score:4, Insightful)
As for jobs that are marketing, support, or admin. These are all valid positions and should not be discounted just because you or someone else doesn't feel they are the right jobs. I know quite a few people who make a great living in marketing, let alone support or similar.
A lot of companies are overseas simply because to compete overseas you have to have a presence. A lot of people in the news industry ignore this requirement because it does not generate the headlines they desire, let alone drive their own agenda.
What it comes down to is that many people just need to grow up and realize that there are jobs worth taking and its up to them to do so. People, including the media, spend to much time dwelling on the actions of big corporations, many of who are truly multinational, because it makes them feel better when they can create a "Bad guy" instead of taking account of themselves. The majority of jobs in the US are not from big businesses but instead from the small business. Lastly too many people are upset they are offered only what they are worth and not what they think they are worth. Time to move past the selfish attitude and realize they are not the center of the universe.
IBM is a sweatshop (Score:3, Informative)
IBM gets business and charges less because they pigeonhole everyone. If you do websphere, thats all you do.
If you do email, thats all you do. It's like working a government job.
It was exactly like the military. If the process says to do the wrong thing, do it anyway.
It's mindless.
Better than unemployment, but not by a whole lot.
Re:IBM is a sweatshop (Score:2, Offtopic)
Websphere is a catch-all for a dozen products. MQSeries is now "Websphere MQ", etc.
Re:IBM is a sweatshop (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked at IBM for about 8 years or so - officially, I was in the Open Systems Developent Group from the git-go, but:
1. I started at IBM Havant (then Portsmouth) directly in the OSDG, mainly doing mini-projects - small up to about 1KLOC one man jobs on AIX systems.
I then finished my university degree.
Then I went to Raleigh, NC (Six Forks Road, not RTP) and worked on POS applications there, doing a demo system for a couple of customers.
I then moved to Houston, and worked on a particular customer's retail system, but whilst doing that, did many side projects - some self-initiated - including looking at porting a visitor's center Space Shuttle simulator from the crufty old IBM PS/2 DOS system (complete with 12in. laserdiscs) to something newer with current hardware.
I worked on many many things at IBM all whilst notionally being in the same department (which changed names several times, that's marketing for you) - quite a few of them self-initiated because I thought they'd be useful for our group or business. I disagreed with management a lot, and often got my own way.
I was treated EXTREMELY well by IBM as an employee. They worked hard to ensure schedules were done right so we didn't have to work unpaid overtime. They gave me 4 weeks of paid compassionate leave when my mother died in another country. It was a superb company to work for. It wasn't mindless, and I learned an enormous amount while I was there.
The only reason I left is that they didn't have any offices or plans to open one in the country I now live, and I wanted to live a bit closer to my Dad.
Generalising about IBM isn't very useful (nor is generalising about Microsoft - whilst one side of MS hates the GPL, another side of Microsoft is actually *funding* GPLed projects...)
At least 1,000 of these are "rebadged" jobs (Score:4, Informative)
Kind of ironic (Score:3, Funny)
Business must be good...
John
Hmmmm (Score:2)
Many are not "new hires" (Score:2, Insightful)
Great! 6000 tech jobs for North America (Score:3, Funny)
994,000 more and we'll be back to the employment levels we had in late '99.
Less than it appears (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:2, Insightful)
Just a guess.....
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:3, Interesting)
IBM has been filling the job-hunting sites with lots of those jobs lately. For a list, try dice. [dice.com] Note that most, about 3/4, seem to be (sales) consultants. Of the remaining quarter, a majority seem to be supporting existing installations and require a significant amount of travel. The few developer jobs, all but one that I looked at had a relativly high level of travel.
Of
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:2)
I would count on Canada getting more than just a few.
Same timezone. Same "accent". Same quality (or lack of) education standard. Same work ethic. Lower salaries.
And IBM can say, in this time of outsourcing sensitivity, "We added new jobs IN *cough*north AMERICA!"
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:4, Insightful)
-kaplanfx
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:2)
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:2)
You lazy bastard (Score:3, Funny)
LK
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:5, Funny)
it's an all new low.
next time, i won't even bother reading the topic.
Re:Are These Outsourced Or Here (Score:2)
next time, i won't even bother reading the topic.
by all means, rush right on in screaming FP !!!!!!!
Welcome to the field (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to understand that a university degree is going to become a part of you, and hopefully refine talent you allready have. Once that matter becomes clear it should be a hard time convincing you why not to start a four-year degree, depending of course on how expensive it is to acquire. I pray you use something other than Microsoft Windows?
Re:Welcome to the field (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? Computer Science has nothing to do with operating systems. CS was here before transisters, before UNIX, before Windows, and before Linux fanboys. I taught myself to program using Q-BASIC which came with MS DOS. I'm sure that this will shock all the people who think that CS has more to do with FUD than logic. CS is a state of mind which bases itself in logic, especially loops. A true CS geek cares more about the language than the OS.
Really, how
Re:My degree (Score:3, Insightful)
Take CS as a minor. Major in something else (Score:3, Interesting)
Geek skills can be learned, business speak and marketing wonkedness (yep, just made that up) cannot be learned because they are unrelated to the actual "Business" and "Marketing" techniques that work. They must, therefore, be taught in believed in along the lines of other religious zealotry.
I leave it to you to figure out which parts of this message are pure sarcasm and which are serious.
Re:Take CS as a minor. Major in something else (Score:2)
You speak in riddles, master. The fish does not learn this, rather it believes lies. All the tish in the ocean have to also believe these lies for their system of stupidity to work, dysfunctionally though it may. This is why market wonkery cannot be learned, it can only be believed.
Re:Take CS as a minor. Major in something else (Score:2)
I know many successful small business owners (and don't forget that many of mega-corps started out as small businesses) who have great "Business" and "Marketing" techniques without college degrees. Granted, most of the skills I use at work were on my own but the college experience has nevertheless valuable b
Re:My degree (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:My degree (Score:2)
Re:My degree (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to do 4 years of school and start a career, I strongly advise you to focus on software engineering. Take as little mathematics as possible and focus on business and more software engineering.
I was a mathematics & computer science double major in my undergrad years and I was all but unemployable with my BS degrees. To work in software development, you need to show experience working in... software development, go figure. I had academic experience working in computation, graph theory, programming language concepts, algorithm analysis, and all sorts of mathematics that were pretty exotic at the undergrad level in CS. That's all fantastic, but what the hell type of job did that qualify me for? Basically nothing.
It did virtually assure me a seat in graduate school, where I was working toward a graduate degree in computation. I dropped out of graduate school for a career that met all my "reasonably ideal" criteria for post-undergrad school, though, so my Master's remains unfinished to date.
Anyway, I advise that you do NOT focus in "computer science", but rather in software development. It is INCREDIBLY more employable with a 4 year degree.
Re:My degree (Score:2)
Re:My degree (Score:3, Informative)
I'm glad we agree, though I may have explained it poorly.
I did focus on the theory rather than the application of the theory and I would not recommend that to anyone. The mathematics courses you list certainly do not meet my criteria for "much math", in fact I'd consider Calc 2 the bare mini
Re:My degree (Score:2)
Re:My degree (Score:2)
Uh, sure it is. (I'm rolling my eyes.)
Now, if you're engineering software with an obviously mathematical bent, then yeah, there's a lot of mathematics involved. In general, however, the abstract/modern algebra courses I took where we redefine "number system" to be any arbitrary collection of elements related by extraordinarily generic "arithmetic operators" isn't going to help you produce a better payroll application. I'm quite certain that the "HELL OF
Re:My degree (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My degree (Score:4, Insightful)
For the most part, disregard most the replies here. It sounds like a number of people have been suffering for the last few years. It tends to produce a jaded outlook.
CS, CE, and EE will be needed here for years to come. If you stay with CS, no problem. But, you need to consider getting a master no matter what you do. While my generation excells with a Bachelors, yours will require a master or PhD to stay in the industry.
Rather than looking at IBM and other companies to hire you, I suggest starting your own company. You will be going to school with some talented people. Meet them and try to get something going. If you can can try to hook up with a salesman. Likewise, read Business for dummies. It will get you started. Consider doing something in the OSS world, but with a consideration to how to make a buck at it. Think Yahoo or Google. Or see what industries that you know and has MS software develoed for, but not for Linux. Develop something but think through the license and how to make money.
Re:My degree (Score:2)
This was exactly my experience after graduating in 2002 with a BS in both Mathematics and Computer Science. Yes, I double majored and my transcript gives me a BS in both majors.
I couldn't even get a "No" back from 90% of the places to which I sent a resume. I got a "Yes" back from every school to which
Re:My degree (Score:2)
Hehe, looks like I type with a Canadian accent?
Re:My degree (Score:2)
Besides, if you think things ar
Re:My degree (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My degree (Score:3, Insightful)
That first interview is normally conducted by HR. The second, if you progress that far, is often handled by the direct department you would actually work in. In fact, if you consider the telephone interview, most of us actually endure this process three times.
Storming out of interviews is a poor way to put food on the table or flesh out that resume. Please, use more caution in the future. You have a lot of skilled and experienced competitors who are willing to suffer the idiocy of an HR drone for
I HAD NO IDEA. (Score:2)
Yup, Hungry Losers.
Hardly A New Demographic.
Im not your parent, but thanks for the edutainment.
Re:My degree (Score:2)
Um... you do realize that one of HR jobs is to interview IT applicants?
Re:My degree (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My degree (Score:2)
Re:My degree (Score:2)
Re:Still sounds kinda grim. (Score:5, Interesting)
Was it 50,000 american jobs that were lost?
Re:Still sounds kinda grim. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Still sounds kinda grim. (Score:4, Insightful)
er, no Re:Still sounds kinda grim. (Score:2, Insightful)
I realize that it's very important to the Kerry campaign to emphasize that (1) the economy is not doing well despite the tax cuts and (2) the war in Iraq is not doing well and should never have happened, but (1) won't fly and (2) is debatable.
Don't blame me -- I'm voting for Nader.
Because I live in MA.
Re:er, no Re:Still sounds kinda grim. (Score:2)
That said, i'm voting Kerry. why take unnecessary risks?
Re:er, no Re:Still sounds kinda grim. (Score:2)
Article would suggest otherwise (Score:3, Interesting)
So it's impossible that they laid off 50,000 in the past 5 years... if it were true, then 1991 wouldn't be the highest with 330,000!
If adding these 18,800 jobs brings them to 330,000, then they must've been at ~311,000 before this announcement. Adding to that your 50,000 in layoffs would imply that IBM had ~360,000 employees at some point in the past 5 years, which isn't possible!
Re:Article would suggest otherwise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still sounds kinda grim. (Score:3)
Re:Still sounds kinda grim. (Score:3, Insightful)
The firings likely represented mostly positions that were becoming less in demand, and the hirings represent ones that are becoming more in demand. Experience and knowledge aren't just scalar quantities.
Go get your own major corporation (Score:2, Troll)
Yea yea yea, get your own IBM. We already broke this one in, and it wasn't easy. With all the anti-trust suits in the 80s, the DOS boondogle that created Microsoft, lack of software for OS/2. Hell, we FINALLY got them house trained, and you want to take them away? It took half a century to get them here, embracing open sou
Re:Go get your own major corporation (Score:2)
It took more than a century [digidome.nl]. And yes, they have been contributing to the world community. [besr.org]
Re:Still sounds kinda grim. (Score:2)
Re:yeah great except, (Score:2)
Re:huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) The Beta Tech/ITT covert spam. You have to read it twice, to understand that after paying them $4500 for a 3 month course, they'll help with job placement.
2) Work at Home! Christ, this scam has to be 40 years old now, haven't they already used up all the idiots?
3) The staffing agency mining for leads. Even I get fooled by these. Recruiter calls me, asks me if I know the names and numbers of all the managers involved in the last 6 big projects I've been in for Fortune 100s. He needs them as references, and no, my coworkers won't do. And yes, as soon as I can get those references, he has a job for me. Haha.
4) The "we have to post this publically, before we can use our H1-B". Usually identifiable by the cryptic description, even by the standards of the buzzword elite.
5) The "must have security clearance". Ok, maybe these are legitimate, but if they all insist on pre-existing clearance, aren't they all chasing after the same 20 people who actually have it and are in this line of work? And if they're so damn rare, how about offering more than $15-17 an hour?
6) The "let's look like a big company" PR blitz. 30 listings at once, all of them paid up extra so that the posting date rolls forward (can't even tell if they're stale or not, as if that matters). Sure, they might hire 2 of those people, but they post the rest knowing full well they'll never hire them.
7) The "let's see if we can get a $90,000 a year expert for $35,000" job listing. My personal favorite. Not that I'm the $90,000 a year expert, just that they probably aren't successful often. Some comfort there.
8) Outright spam. The "apply now" link will take you to viagra, porn, or every once in awhile a MLM scheme. They show up even on Monster, though to its credit, they get nailed within a few hours, near as I can tell. Seeing a disturbing number of these types of listings though.
9) The "let's make you jump through 30 hoops to email your resume" listing. Usually climaxes with them insisting I take my resume that I've carefully crafted and formatted over the years, and strip it down to plaintext and then upload it in a webform textarea. Thanks. Not like you'll read it anyway?
10) The impossible experience listing. 20 years of linux, 7 years of
But never worry, with so many job listings, the economy is surely picking up.
Re:huh? (Score:2)
insisting I take my resume that I've carefully crafted and formatted over the years, and strip it down to plaintext and then upload it in a webform textarea.
What kind of resume do you have that's hard to represent in text? MS Word
Not to be mean, but maybe that's you're problem. Resumes are about content, not form or presentation. Or at least mine is. And I'm doing well and hassled by recruiters weekly.
Re:huh? (Score:2)
Certainly, the reaction of those HR droids that have seen it isn't negative. While I'm sure it might be tossed in the garbage can quite often, it's the gen
Re:huh? (Score:2)
And if you're ashamed to say it's msword, then why is it msword? How can you go into an interview holding something you're ashamed of?
Then again, maybe you're looking for work in graphic design or something, in which case what you describe may well indeed be "restrained."
But
Re:huh? (Score:2)
Re:Boom or bust (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if the jobs are not largely in development, IBM must still have some good ideas in order to take such a plunge. Perhaps it smells the blood of competitors or does it feel good times are coming? Or does it want to solidify a position?
Re:L-1 Visa Loophole (Score:3, Informative)
IBM has clear internal processes on international assignments. I've been an international assignee with IBM, and they don't do it unless they REALLY REALLY need to. They pay international assignees very well - I was much more expensive for IBM than any of my Houston-based co-workers (my basic salary was similar, and on top of that I got about US$20,000 in international allowances). Additionally, they will upgrade your salary to meet the local conditions if they fall short.
IBM generally avoid send