IBM Layoffs and Their Effect on Employees and Their Families

IBM Layoffs Affect Employees and Families.

With so many layoffs coming in 2026 inside such profitable organizations such as Meta, Amazon, LinkedIn, Oracle, Walmart, UPS, Block, Morgan Stanley and more [read Wall Street Journal article here], individuals may start to think that this is a new phenomenon in the 21st Century.

Actually Louis V. Gerstner, Samuel J. Palmisano and Virginia (Ginny) M. Rometty began the 21st Century optimizing IBM's (International Business Machines') profits through layoffs—resource actions in IBM terminology. These IBM Chief Executive Officers set the tone for the current layoffs taking place now ... two decades later! No matter your generational descriptor—Boomer, Gen X, Gen Z, layoffs have been around for a long, long time.

These are two stories of back-to-back resource actions experienced by myself, my wife and my family in 2003. This is what layoffs sound like at home!

​Send the links to your friends and bosses on your way out the door.

An excerpt from "A View from Beneath (Lou Gerstner's) Dancing Elephant.

"My family experienced two Resource Action Days in 2003, within a few months of each other.
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​"In January my new sales manager called me at my home office. ​'Pete, layoffs may be hitting the Sales and Distribution Division. You’ve been a wonderful employee, you’ve performed well, and I’m giving you as much time as I can, but you are on my list to be targeted for a layoff. ​If you haven’t found another job in the next thirty days, you will get the Letter.'

"The words, 'The Letter' rang in my ears. I had never seen 'The Letter;' but it was the Mark of Cain—by next month you would be gone.

​"My stomach tightened. I heard a question escape: 'Why me?' ”

Select the image or link below to read about the effects that
​resource actions—layoffs, have on employees and their families.

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