IBM Corp has quietly embarked on its third US early retirement programme in as many years, this time initially seeking to shed 1,000 employees at four plants. The four are the 9370 plant at Endicott, New York, the Lexington, Kentucky plant that makes printers and typewriters, and the Manassas, Virginia and Oswego, New York defence electronics plants. Underlining its straitened circumstances, the company is being much less generous this time, offering only one week’s pay for each six months of service with a maximum of a year’s pay, but still expects 1,000 people to accept. It shed a total of 21,500 in the first two rounds.
