IBM Canada Ltd, Toronto, reckons that its share of this year’s job reductions should amount to about 10% of its workforce, which would mean about 1,000 people leaving the company. It is launching voluntary early retirement programmes for its marketing and services organisation, which employs 6,000 people, and says that the new initiative, combined with a previous offer of early retirement to its manufacturing and development employees, should lead to a net reduction of 10% this year. The company declines to speculate on what might happen if too few people sign up; IBM Canada earned $640,000 last year on $5,360m last year, with $3,200m of exports.
