IBM stops disclosing U.S. headcount data

From InfoWorld: IBM says it is the No. 1 technology employer in the U.S. and the world, but as time moves on it may be harder to tell just what is happening to its domestic workforce.

IBM has stopped providing breakouts of the number of employees it has in the U.S., and in doing so is closing a door to data that provided insights into this bellwether company's employment shift. Over the years, IBM workforce data showed accelerating overseas employee hiring, especially in India, and a steadily declining U.S. workforce.

In its most recently released annual report, the company only provides its global headcount. Overall, IBM finished 2009 with 399,409 employees worldwide, up 0.2 percent or just short of 1,000 from 2008.

IBM's U.S. workforce, according to the latest data from last fall, which appeared in congressional testimony, is 105,000. In 2007, IBM employed 121,000 in the U.S.

The Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701, which has been trying to win bargaining rights for employees has estimated that the company laid off about 10,000 U.S. workers last year and IBM recently conducted another layoff , that the Alliance says has reached about 2,900.

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