<story><title>Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.</title><url>http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/computing/it/reports-coming-in-of-mass-us-layoffs-underway-today-at-ibm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mathattack</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s what I don&amp;#x27;t get...  If you have any options at all, why stay at a company with sub-par technology that abuses their workers?  They&amp;#x27;ve been stuck in low 3 Glassdoor [0] range for a while.  It&amp;#x27;s layoff after layoff as they slowly dismantle the company.  Why stay?  Geographic limitations?  Narrow skillsets?&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.glassdoor.com&amp;#x2F;Reviews&amp;#x2F;IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trends-overallRating&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.glassdoor.com&amp;#x2F;Reviews&amp;#x2F;IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trend...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dredmorbius</author><text>Among other factors mentioned:  employer-specific skillsets.&lt;p&gt;Technology jobs are &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; highly specialised.  And I&amp;#x27;m not just speaking of computer tech.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m old enough to have seen several generations of obsoleted &amp;quot;gold tickets&amp;quot;.  Nuclear Engineering, future destroyed March 28, 1979.  Freeway engineers, the freeway protests of the 1960s&amp;#x2F;1970s.  Big Three auto manufacturers, dream destroyed with the first oil embargo, and sudden onslaught of more fuel efficient, less expensive, and &lt;i&gt;better quality&lt;/i&gt; imports from Japan and Germany.  Petroleum engineers, dream destroyed as the oil market collapsed in the 1980s.  Aerospace engineers, dream destroyed with the fall of the Soviet Union and redundancies in the military-industrial complex throughout NATO powers.&lt;p&gt;Travel agents, newspaper journalists, and Perl hackers are only more recent victims of the same levels of specialisation.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that these people are &lt;i&gt;dumb&lt;/i&gt;, many were brilliant.  But they&amp;#x27;re also laden with a &lt;i&gt;tremendous&lt;/i&gt; amount of arcane knowledge, that, unfortunately, &lt;i&gt;gets in the way&lt;/i&gt; of learning new skills.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s been painfully obvious for a long time that, individual success stories notwithstanding, retraining and &amp;quot;reskilling&amp;quot; typically does very little to alleviate this.&lt;p&gt;Yes, &lt;i&gt;future&lt;/i&gt; generations get trained into new skills, some of which may still be germaine 4-8 years after they&amp;#x27;ve completed schooling.  But my observation is that job and skill cycles are iterating faster.&lt;p&gt;So that&amp;#x27;s a part of it.&lt;p&gt;Yes, there are other dimensions.  Obligations, family ties, social ties, fears, the fact that the  most mobile &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; jump ship first, and more.&lt;p&gt;But really, it&amp;#x27;s quite crushing.  You may not understand it now, but you almost certainly will, eventually.</text></comment>
<story><title>Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.</title><url>http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/computing/it/reports-coming-in-of-mass-us-layoffs-underway-today-at-ibm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mathattack</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s what I don&amp;#x27;t get...  If you have any options at all, why stay at a company with sub-par technology that abuses their workers?  They&amp;#x27;ve been stuck in low 3 Glassdoor [0] range for a while.  It&amp;#x27;s layoff after layoff as they slowly dismantle the company.  Why stay?  Geographic limitations?  Narrow skillsets?&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.glassdoor.com&amp;#x2F;Reviews&amp;#x2F;IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trends-overallRating&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.glassdoor.com&amp;#x2F;Reviews&amp;#x2F;IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trend...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattgrice</author><text>Say you&amp;#x27;re a support person working at IBM in Dubuque, Iowa, where local and state taxpayers spent $50M to lure IBM in a delusion of becoming a tech hub. [1]  You specialize in Lotus Notes support for local businesses like Hormel.  Last year, IBM laid off 2&amp;#x2F;3 of their Dubuque workforce, 700 people, in a city of 60,000.  More than 1% of the population.  Your only skill is Notes, same as dozens of other people that were laid off.  The nearest cities of any note are Cedar Rapids and Madison, both more than an hour away.  You know you need to get out, but where and how?&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2015-05-19&amp;#x2F;iowa-spent-50-million-to-lure-ibm-then-the-firings-started&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2015-05-19&amp;#x2F;iowa-spent...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>