IBM may soon fire over 1 lakh employees in biggest ever layoff, says report

According to a report, IBM is planning to fire over around 1,11,800 employees as part of a restructuring process. If true, this could be the world's biggest corporate layoff.

Currently, the company employs over 4,30,000 people, which means the company is asking nearly 26 per cent of its workforce to leave.

"To fix its business problems and speed up its transformation, next week about 26 per cent of IBM's employees will be getting phone calls from their managers. A few hours later a package will appear on their doorsteps with all the paperwork," Robert X Cringley, a veteran tech journalist, wrote on a blog at Forbes.com.

According to Cringley, the whole layoff event is called Project Chrome. "It will hit many of the worldwide services operations. The USA will be hit hard, but so will other locations. One in four IBMers reading this column will probably start looking for a new job next week. Those employees will all be gone by the end of February," he wrote.

Although overall IBM has done well, especially after it spun off its personal computer division around 10 years ago by selling it to Lenovo, in last few years, the performance has not been so good.

IBM released its performance figures for the fourth quarter of 2014 just a few days ago.

"Fourth-quarter net income from continuing operations was $5.5 billion compared with $6.2 billion in the fourth-quarter of 2013, a decrease of 11 per cent.  Operating net income from continuing operations was $5.8 billion, as compared with $6.6 billion in the fourth-quarter of 2013, a decrease of 13 per cent," the company said.

CEO Ginni Rometty said In a statement that the focus was on transformation.

"We are making significant progress in our transformation, continuing to shift IBM's business to higher value, and investing and positioning ourselves for the longer term," she said in the press note issued by IBM announcing its quarterly results.

IBM's revenue has declined for the last 11 quarters.