Since CEO Arvind Krishna’s historic decision to break up the company’s century-long hardware business in early October, IBM has been actively gearing up to supercharge their cloud technology.

Today, the veteran tech titan has come forward with another major announcement: it is looking to cut up to 10,000 as part of a company restructuring process to prepare for hybrid cloud development.

“Our staffing decisions are made to provide the best support to our customers in adopting an open hybrid cloud platform and AI capabilities,” said an IBM spokeswoman in an emailed statement to Bloomberg.

The job cut will be seen primarily in Europe, with the UK and Germany set to be the most affected. Employees in Italy, Belgium, Poland, and Slovakia are also expected to be laid off.

The mass layoff would be equivalent to the loss of 20% of IBM’s workforce in the region. Bloomberg reports that the job cut in Europe is expected to be completed by the end of mid-2021.

“We also continue to make significant investments in training and skills development for IBMers to best meet the needs of our customers,” the statement added.

IBM has set its sights on India’s workforce by collaborating with India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to deliver labour upskilling courses to tech professionals in the country.

“This collaboration with IBM aligns with the National Education Policy’s emphasis on learning 21st century skills to ensure the future-readiness of India’s youth and realising the vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat,” said Dinesh Tyagi, the Managing Director of the Common Services Centre e-Governance Services.

Through MeitY’s Common Services Centre (CSC) Academy, IBM will be curating STEM content, including cloud and AI, for not only professionals in the industry, but also women and underprivileged youths.

On the partnership with the Indian government, Sandip Patel, Managing Director at IBM India/South Asia, said: “Exponential technologies like AI and Hybrid Cloud can drive path-breaking innovations and fuel the nation’s digital India vision. To make this a reality there is a need to create the right avenues and platforms for learners to be equipped with industry-ready skills.”

Arvind Krishna’s decision to focus on cloud came at an opportune time, and IBM’s latest quarterly results show that the company has time to compete in the market. Although total revenue fell by 2.6% to $17.56 billion, it earned $6 billion in cloud revenue, which was a 19% increase year-on-year.

By Jie Yee Ong, Tech Reporter

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