IBM employees in the Southern Tier could be affected by the company’s decision to shed one of its divisions. IBM has been working on a deal for months to get rid of its chipmanufacturing division. Yesterday, the company confirmed a deal with Globalfoundaries Incorporated to take over IBM’s unprofitable chip-manufacturing unit. The local Alliance@IBM, an IBM employee advocate group, said although there is not an IBM chip manufacturing plant in the Southern Tier, employees in the region may not be excluded from this “reorganization.” Because Endicott are most likely apart of several different divisions in IBM, one of which could be the chip manufacturing, they are not directly doing manufacturing jobs, but they are either writing software or they are supporting some of the other divisions at some of the other sites. Those working in administrative roles for the chip-manufacturing division, potentially some employees in Endicott, could be effected by this move from IBM to Globalfoundaries. While Globalfoundaries has said they plan to keep IBM’s current employees at the chip-manufacturing facilities, Alliance@IBM believes this kind of “restructuring” has historically led to lay-offs. IBM once employed more than 10,000 people in the Southern Tier, and now there’s estimated to be just a few hundred IBM employees in the Endicott area.
