IBM to outsource 5,000 American jobs

IBM Corp. will lay off about 5,000 employees in the United States in line with its restructuring plans directed at cutting costs.

The move, revealed Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal, will reduce the company's costs by shifting its workforce to cheaper countries, such as India and China. 

The new job cuts will force more than 4 percent of the 115,000 IBM personnel in the US out of work in line with plans to bring "structural changes". 

Sources at IBM, who declined to speak publicly on the issue, said the lay offs will mostly be in IBM's global services business, which includes outsourcing and consulting services. 

An IBM spokesman has declined to comment on the issue. 

IBM now has about 400,000 employees worldwide. 

The company, considered the biggest computer firm worldwide, reported a net income of $12.3 billion in 2008 -- 18 percent higher than a year earlier, despite the global recession.