Oookay, so to dig into it:
> They can provide severance packages, extra benefits maybe. Try to re-train some people perhaps. But can't keep everyone till retirement just to provide jobs (That is what Uncle Sam does).
Right, but they cut their severance packages. So clearly they're trying to contain costs. So yes, that's also a good sign for IBM the corporation, less good for their employees.
> Services was bringing a huge amount of money during late 90s early to mid 2000s. It just doesn't anymore
Now we have to step into the realm of the possible. Would it have been possible for IBM to look at their services backlog and contract timeframes, churn/retention rates and a few years ago say, "Shit, these contracts don't work out from an economic perspective, and maybe we should start to attrition out these deals because they're not going to work out long term?"
Maybe someone did (in fact, I'm almost certain someone did somewhere). But I'd also bet that some execs somewhere decided to keep going, keep signing money-losing contracts, that everyone started to live a lie so that they can get promoted, keep their bonuses, etc.
And now that they've now decided it was a mistake- the company doesn't pay the price (reduced severance), it's the workers who do.
> We are posting on HN right. This startup land. Every 9 out of 10 startups will die. Are you holding them just as responsible? Or is there some implicit assumption that if you work for IBM then you'll be good till retirement.
So, I've had to lay people off at a startup. It's terrible. We went out of our way to take care of them, including offering long severance packages, and cutting salaries and bonuses at an exec level to mitigate the layoffs. It sucks, but that was our obligation.
And I do hold startups somewhat responsible, but its also a different scenario - early stage startups are a known risk.
The big point I want to highlight is that I believe employers have an obligation to look after their employees, and when as a corporation they made a bet that didnt' work out, or had a profitable business that is no longer profitable, the ethical obligation is on them to look after those employees.
> How about this, what would you do if you ran IBM and you ended up with 50000 employees trained to do something that just doesn't bring profit anymore?
Treat them with dignity. Pay them a lot of money based on their time of service. Recognize that we should see this as a failure as an organization. Never refer to it as a "good thing"
EDIT: I also would have tried to "get out in front of it" - 50,000 people's jobs don't become redundant overnight other than through wishful thinking on leadership's part.