International Business Machines Corp., the world’s largest computer-services provider, cut almost 500 jobs across the U.S., according to Alliance@IBM, a group that represents some employees.

“We have received verification of almost 500 people losing their jobs today and we expect that number to go higher,” said Lee Conrad, national coordinator of the alliance, which is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America and is seeking union recognition at IBM.

The cuts represent less than 1 percent of IBM’s workforce of 399,409 as of Dec. 31. The company fired 10,400 people in the U.S. and Canada last year, Conrad said. Work was shifted overseas as IBM coped with sales drops in three of the past four quarters. The firings come less than two months after IBM said full-year profit will be at least $11 a share, up from a previous forecast of $10 to $11.

“We continually remix our skills and structure to meet the changing needs of our clients,” Doug Shelton, a spokesman for Armonk, New York-based IBM, said today in an interview. He declined to comment further.

Job reductions in the U.S. will be far fewer than the 10,000 reported by the alliance last year, according to a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public. Restructuring costs will be in the same range as 2008 and 2009 and will be focused in Europe and Asia, the person said.

IBM had $474 million in expenses related to global workforce reductions last year and $737 million in 2008, according to its annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The alliance verifies the job losses through employees’ severance packages. About 5,000 IBM workers have signed up on the group’s Web site, expressing support, and about 350 are dues-paying members, Conrad said.

IBM rose $1.41, or 1.1 percent, to $128.57 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has declined 1.8 percent this year.

source:businessweek