Vendors axe headcount

Oracle and IBM shed staff

With the economic downturn showing no signs of abating, two large vendors are axing jobs at their consulting operations.

Oracle is to make 270 staff redundant from its UK consulting operation, which represents about nine per cent of its UK workforce. Last year the vendor claimed it anticipated a global reduction of one or two per cent in headcount over the year.

In a statement, the company said: "No organisation is immune to the current economic crisis. Oracle is constantly re-evaluating business-critical staffing allocations as part of ongoing efforts to consolidate operations, retain staff and increase technological efficiencies."

Separately, IBM has cut hundreds of jobs following its acquisition of PwC's consulting arm in July. Reports suggest that up to 4,000 jobs could be lost in the fourth quarter.

After the acquisition, Ralph Martino, vice president of strategy at IBM Global Services, said: "The redundancies would be staff functions, back-office functions and non-customer-facing functions."

Most of the cuts would be among the 30,000 workers at PwC, although they could include IBM staff. IBM is also cutting its 150,000-strong Global Services arm by more than 14,000 this year.