Laid off US employees of IBM offered jobs in India

Washington, Feb 7: After layoffs, IBM is offering its laid off employees a chance to take a job in IBM branches of India, Nigeria, Russia or other countries through Project Match, said a CNN report.

The internal document of the company cites that Project Match will help interested workers whose jobs are on the chopping block to "identify potential opportunities in growth markets and facilitate consideration by hiring managers in those markets".

The document also cites several countries with IBM opportunities that include Argentina, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

The document also specifies that only satisfactory performers willing to work on local conditions should pursue the jobs.

The CNN report stated that IBM did not confirm if it means that the workers would be paid local wages and would be subject to local labour laws.

A spokesman for Alliance@IBM, a workers' group that is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America but does not have official union status at IBM, slammed the initiative.

"IBM not only is offshoring its work to low-cost countries, now IBM wants employees to offshore themselves," spokesman Lee Conrad told CNN. "At a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the US."

OneIndia News (With inputs from Agencies)