IBM Layoffs by Year: $7.9B in Workforce Charges Since 2015, Only 705 Workers in the WARN Files

IBM layoffs by year, as of November 5, 2026: IBM reports no layoff count, so the spine is dollars. Workforce rebalancing charges were $438 million in 2023, $696 million in 2024, $670 million in 2025 and $439 million through September 2026. Worldwide staff fell to 264,300 at the end of 2025. State WARN files show at least 705 workers since 2015.

Bars: “workforce reductions” through 2010 and “workforce rebalancing charges” after, the same row in IBM’s selling, general and administrative table, as first reported each year. Red is 2005’s separate restructuring row. The white tick on 2020 marks $2,035 million, the recast figure after Kyndryl left. Light blue 2026 is nine months. Line: IBM and wholly owned subsidiaries at December 31, as reported.

IBM layoffs by year: the full table

Each row pairs the charge with the annual report’s workforce table and the WARN rows we could read. Click a blue heading to sort. The slider converts dollars into an estimate of positions, and only that column is an estimate.

Net change includes hiring, acquisitions and divestitures, so it is not a layoff number. 2016 onward is reported to the nearest hundred. WARN rows are by employer notice date, IBM as filer only. Files reach back to different years by state (see Methodology), so an early zero can mean no file. The estimate column ignores inflation and geography: a cut in India and a cut in Germany cost very different sums.

What the dollars show that nothing else does

IBM has charged $11.3B to this line from 2012 through 2025, and $439 million more in 2026 so far. The largest single year is 2020, at $2,922 million as first reported, of which the annual report ties $2.0 billion to fourth-quarter “structural actions (primarily workforce rebalancing).” That year was recast to $2,035 million once Kyndryl moved out of continuing operations. The quietest recent years, 2021 and 2022, cost $181 million and $50 million while the 2020 action was still being paid. IBM’s accrued balance for workforce reductions fell from $1,359 million to $701 million across 2022, which IBM attributes primarily to cash payments for that action.

Do larger charges predict falling headcount? We tested it, and they do not in any useful way. Excluding the divestiture years 2014 and 2021, the correlation between a year’s charge and that year’s net staff change is -0.25 across 21 years, and with the next year’s change it is 0.22 across 18. Two years show the gap: in 2016 IBM charged $1,038 million and staff rose by 2,543, and in 2017 it charged $199 million and staff fell by 13,700. The charge measures money spent on workforce actions, and net headcount also moves with hiring, attrition and acquisitions. Neither is a layoff count.

Is IBM doing layoffs in 2026? The quarterly record

From the selling, general and administrative table in each Form 10-Q. Red is the first quarter, blue the fourth. Fourth quarters are the annual figure minus nine months, so the Q4 2024 value of minus 5 is a subtraction result, not a stated number.

Charges come in lumps, and the first quarter is usually the big one: $1.3B of the $2.2B since January 2023 landed in the four first quarters, 58% of the money. The exceptions are the third quarter of 2024, at $306 million, and the fourth quarter of 2025, at $293 million. That last figure lines up with the action IBM’s spokesperson described to CNBC on November 4, 2025. In the fourth-quarter 2025 prepared remarks, CFO Jim Kavanaugh tied it to a deal: “Given the announcement of our intention to acquire Confluent, we accelerated productivity initiatives in the fourth quarter, to help mitigate 2026 dilution, similar to our playbook on HashiCorp.” He then guided to “workforce rebalancing fairly consistent with the prior year” for 2026. Through nine months, IBM is at $439 million against $377 million a year earlier, up 16%. The third quarter of 2026 was only $15 million. In the September 10-Q, the separate line in the segment reconciliation shows a net credit of $4 million for that quarter.

What IBM has said, in its own documents

Neither statement gives a headcount. Productivity savings include non-labor items such as supply chain, so the $5.5 billion cannot be converted into jobs. The last time IBM gave a position count alongside a charge, in the filings we read, was the May 5, 2005 transcript filed under Item 2.05: “we expect to eliminate between 10,000 and 13,000 positions worldwide,” with most actions in Germany, the UK, Italy and France. Those two May 2005 filings are the only 8-Ks tagged Item 2.05 in EDGAR’s index for IBM. No later action, including the $2.0 billion one in 2020, went through that item.

Where the headcount actually went

Staff at IBM and wholly owned subsidiaries. “About 35,000” is IBM’s footnote for 2014. “About 90,000” is IBM’s description of the Kyndryl business in the 2021 report. Reported staff fell by 63,800 that year, so other hiring offset part of it, and the two rounded figures make the last block approximate.

From the end of 2012 to the end of 2025, wholly owned staff fell by 169,946, or 39%. About 74% of that matches staff IBM says left with businesses it sold or spun off. That leaves about 44,946 as the net of all layoffs, attrition, hiring and acquisitions in 13 years. This is why headlines that subtract one headcount from another overstate layoffs at IBM. Complementary staff, IBM’s estimate of temporary, part-time and limited-term workers, also fell, from 24,740 to 13,800.

IBM also stopped telling investors how many people it employs in America. Its annual reports said about 127,000 in the U.S. at the end of 2006, 121,000 in 2007 and 115,000 in 2008. The 2009 report and every report since gives no U.S. figure, and neither does the 2025 Human Capital table. The closest thing since is the spokesperson’s line that “U.S. employment will remain flat year over year,” which we cannot test against any filing.

WARN notices by year: what the files show

The files cannot show why IBM files so rarely. What they show is few notices and small ones.

Blue bars: workers on IBM’s own WARN rows in the states read, by notice date. Red figures: IBM’s workforce charge for the same year. Different scales, and the charge is worldwide while WARN is U.S. only.

From 2015 to 2025 we found 10 IBM rows totalling 705 workers, against $7.9B of charges worldwide. No row names more than 140, and five of the ten name 53 to 75, just above the 50-worker line that generally triggers notice in California. New York’s trigger is lower, and Costa Mesa’s 47 in 2023 is under 50. The newest is dated November 4, 2025, the same day as IBM’s statement to CNBC: 75 workers at 555 Bailey Avenue in San Jose. California’s file lists its effective date as January 5, 2025, an apparent typo for 2026. No 2026 IBM row appears in any file we read, including California through November 2, Washington through November 4, New York, Virginia, Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. No row names Red Hat, HashiCorp, Apptio, Kyndryl, Turbonomic or Instana.

WARNTracker’s IBM page shows 32 notices and 3,470 workers since 1994, and the comparison is useful in both directions. It lists rows we could not open at the state, including Vermont’s 500 in 2013, Iowa’s 236 in Dubuque in 2020 and North Carolina’s 72 in 2025, so we label them unverified and leave them out of our count. It also misses rows the state files do have: Coppell’s 59, the San Jose 75 and San Francisco’s 53 in 2023. And it counts 84 workers in Buffalo in 2021 as IBM, though the New York file names the filer as CTG, Inc., a contractor at an IBM-Anthem site. For the wider picture, see our 2026 tech layoffs tracker and the filing-level counts in Oracle layoffs by state, where one vendor’s WARN trail is far denser.

Before the table starts: 1991 to 1994

“IBM layoff history” searches usually mean this period. EDGAR’s oldest IBM filings show charges of $3.7 billion in 1991, $11.6 billion in 1992 and $8.9 billion in 1993, before tax. Regular full-time employees fell from 301,542 at the end of 1992 to 256,207 at the end of 1993 and 219,839 at the end of 1994: a net drop of 81,703 in two years. Those filings give no split between layoffs and other exits in this table. The 2020 charge, the largest modern year, was about a third of 1993’s $8.9 billion before adjusting for inflation.

Reports we label unconfirmed

What this means for MSPs

The checkable points: IBM’s charges cluster in the first quarter, segment margins have excluded them since 2023, and the CEO said in July 2026 that productivity actions span the whole company. No filing says which teams are affected, and Red Hat has no WARN row in our files, so nothing here shows partner or support teams shrank. Advice, not a finding: if you resell IBM or Red Hat, confirm named escalation contacts in writing before renewals that fall in January to March, and do not read Consulting or Software segment margin gains as free of restructuring cost. When comparing vendors, our Microsoft layoff history and Meta layoffs by year show how much more those companies disclose.

Frequently asked questions

Is IBM doing layoffs in 2026?

Yes, by its own charge line. IBM booked $439 million of workforce rebalancing charges through September 30, 2026: $359 million in the first quarter, $65 million in the second and $15 million in the third. The nine-month total is 16% above the same months of 2025. IBM gives no 2026 layoff count, and the WARN files we read show no 2026 IBM notice.

How many people has IBM laid off by year?

IBM does not publish a count by year. It publishes dollars: $438 million in 2023, $696 million in 2024 and $670 million in 2025. Staff at IBM and wholly owned subsidiaries fell by 6,100, 11,900 and 6,000 in those years, but that is net of hiring and acquisitions.

When did IBM start to decline?

Two dates. Regular full-time staff fell from 301,542 at the end of 1992 to 219,839 at the end of 1994, with charges of $11.6 billion in 1992 and $8.9 billion in 1993. The modern count peaked at 434,246 at the end of 2012. It has fallen in 10 of the 13 years since, and stood at 264,300 at the end of 2025.

How much severance does IBM pay?

IBM’s filings give no severance formula. They say workforce rebalancing charges primarily include employee transition costs, severance and employee benefits. The one case we found with both dollars and positions is 2005: $1,574 million for 10,000 to 13,000 planned positions, or about $121,000 to $157,000 each. That is our arithmetic, mostly in Europe, and not a severance quote.

Does IBM file WARN notices?

Yes, but few appear. We found 10 IBM rows for 705 workers from 2015 to 2025 in the state files we read, and the latest is 75 workers at 555 Bailey Avenue in San Jose, dated November 4, 2025. WARN applies only above site-level thresholds, and 28 states could not be read, so this is a floor.

Did IBM lay off workers in August 2026?

The record we can check does not show it. IBM’s third-quarter charge was $15 million, the smallest third quarter in the four years shown here, and the California and Washington files read through early November 2026 hold no 2026 IBM row. A small action could still fall below WARN thresholds.

Methodology

References

1. IBM, Forms 10-K and annual reports, 2001 to 2026, SEC EDGAR. Accessed November 2026.
2. IBM, 2025 annual report (fiscal 2025 Form 10-K). Accessed November 2026.
3. IBM, 2020 annual report, Exhibit 13. Accessed November 2026.
4. IBM, 2021 annual report, Exhibit 13. Accessed November 2026.
5. IBM, 2014 annual report, Exhibit 13. Accessed November 2026.
6. IBM, 2008 annual report, Exhibit 13. Accessed November 2026.
7. IBM, 2005 annual report, Exhibit 13. Accessed November 2026.
8. IBM, Form 10-Q for September 30, 2026. Accessed November 2026.
9. IBM, Form 10-Q for September 30, 2025. Accessed November 2026.
10. IBM, Form 10-Q for September 30, 2024. Accessed November 2026.
11. IBM, Form 10-Q for September 30, 2023. Accessed November 2026.
12. IBM, third-quarter 2026 earnings release, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1. Accessed November 2026.
13. IBM, fourth-quarter 2025 earnings prepared remarks. Accessed November 2026.
14. IBM, second-quarter 2026 earnings prepared remarks. Accessed November 2026.
15. IBM, first-quarter 2023 Form 8-K Exhibit 99.2, non-GAAP definitions. Accessed November 2026.
16. IBM, Form 8-K Item 2.05, May 4, 2005. Accessed November 2026.
17. IBM, Form 8-K Item 2.05, CFO transcript, May 5, 2005. Accessed November 2026.
18. IBM, Form 10-K for 1993. Accessed November 2026.
19. IBM, Form 10-K for 1994. Accessed November 2026.
20. California Employment Development Department, WARN reports. Accessed November 2026.
21. Washington Employment Security Department, WARN database. Accessed November 2026.
22. New York Department of Labor, WARN dashboard. Accessed November 2026.
23. Texas Open Data Portal, WARN notices. Accessed November 2026.
24. New Jersey Department of Labor, WARN archive. Accessed November 2026.
25. Illinois workNet, WARN reports. Accessed November 2026.
26. CNBC, November 4, 2025 (press, with IBM spokesperson statement). Accessed November 2026.
27. KORE1, recruiter article (unconfirmed, not counted). Accessed November 2026.
28. WARNTracker, IBM page (compared, not counted). Accessed November 2026.