IBM slashes pay of some US staff

Staff forced to do training one day a week from October

IBM has initiated a 10 per cent pay cut for some of its US employees, who will have to undergo one-day-a-week training programmes.

The pay cut was announced to its staff in a memo which read, "some managers and employees have not kept pace with acquiring the skills and expertise needed to address changing client needs, technology and market requirements".

The employees required to do more training will receive 90 per cent of their normal pay, and will have to dedicate one day a week to training, or up to 23 days in total, from 16 October 2014 to 31 March 2014.

The pay cuts follows reports earlier this year that Big Blue is looking to slash 15,000 jobs.

An anonymous IBM staff member told Computerworld they were "shocked" to be placed on the list and felt IBM is acting "in the hopes that the employees won't be able to sustain that pay and decide to quit, exempting IBM from letting them go and have to pay severance".

IBM spokeswoman Trink Guarino said: "Under this programme, these employees will spend one day a week developing skills in key growth areas such as cloud, analytics, mobile and social."

In April 2014 a court ruled IBM UK had unfairly overhauled its pension scheme in a bid to save millions of pounds at the height of the financial crisis.