IBM's º£½ÇÊÓƵ division has reportedly cut nearly 400 jobs in 2024, as the company's profit took a hit of almost 25%. The American tech titan's º£½ÇÊÓƵ workforce shrank from 7,309 to 6,920 over the course of a year, according to recent filings with Companies House.
This reduction follows an average employment figure of 7,660 recorded in 2022. The reports also highlight a drop in IBM's pre-tax profit from £172.9m to £130.4m during the same period, as reported by .
This decline comes on the heels of a profit surge exceeding £100m in 2023, driven by increased demand for the firm's AI and hybrid cloud services. The Portsmouth-based division saw its revenue slightly decrease in 2024, from £3.06bn to £3.04bn.
After paying out a dividend of £198m to its US parent company in 2023, no such recommendation was made for 2024. Despite these figures, IBM's management expressed satisfaction with the division's performance over the year.
IBM bosses pleased with division's year
In a statement approved by the board, IBM noted: "Revenue from the core business units increased by 1.6 per cent."
It further explained that export revenues, primarily generated from service sales to IBM group companies overseas, fell by 12.8 percentage points compared to 2023. This was largely due to a reorganisation of IBM group research and development activities.
The company also attributed the dip in pre-tax profit to a "positive movement in interest income of £9.5m."
The division also reported that its closing net asset position increased from £1.75bn to £1.98bn – a rise primarily attributed to the issuance of a preference share to acquire Super iPaaS Integration º£½ÇÊÓƵ Limited, the generated profit for the year and the increase in the net retirement benefit asset.
IBM added: "The directors are pleased with the performance of the company given the challenging economic environment.
"In 2024, IBM º£½ÇÊÓƵ... made significant progress in its journey to become amore innovative and focused company, built around the two most transformative technologies of our time; hybrid cloud and AI."
