IBM is Already Gutting Red Hat and Firing Employees Without Warning

(techrights.org)

First, as a little bit of background, earlier this year we researched for long periods of time to better understand whether IBM’s planned (and openly announced) layoffs in NC area affect Red Hat (formerly RHAT and then RHT, now IBM). We looked for some rumours online, but came up with too little; almost empty-handed, but that was months ago. Remember that Red Hat has its own operations in NC (the headquarters and founding place); corporate media said IBM planned to lay off in NC and 4 other states, the total being — reportedly — about 5,000 people (IBM is still hiring in India by the way). The tricky thing is, IBM and Red Hat both have NC-based operations and a rather large number of workers there. It’s somewhat of a business hub. But we also know that IBM does not need two HR departments, two marketing departments, etc. Managers are sort of converging in duties, conflicting in terms of roles, overlapping in the workflow sense and so on.

Last year, as we noted here before, I had heard from an IBM acquisition victim (whom I cannot name, but he is a high-profile person) that they always wait 2 years before the guillotine falls. Why 2 years? Go figure. But if one studies the pattern (after IBM acquisitions), then it’s always 2 years. It has now been almost exactly two years since the acquisition was announced (a couple of months from now).

Has IBM begun axing staff of Red Hat? Well, nobody has explored or covered that subject (which we know of…) and it is unlikely that IBM or Red Hat will just spoon-feed this kind of information. It needs to be ‘pulled’, as they won’t ‘push’ out such information. Citing a recent press report, Ryan saw signs of impact for Red Hat. “They said it would “make it difficult to hire more people” with the pandemic raging,” he quoted. “No comment when asked about whether that meant layoffs from Red Hat.”

Welp, this is what happens when a legacy company like IBM acquires a company like Red Hat this happens folks.