IBM's Red Hat to lay off about 760 employees globally

Open source solution provider Red Hat will lay off nearly 4 per cent of its global workforce, or about 760 employees, the media reported on Monday.

The North Carolina-based software major has about 19,000 employees across the world.

According to The Herald Sun, Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks called the job cuts "a decision our leadership team was truly hoping we could avoid".

"This decision is now appropriate to ensure Red Hat`s ability to compete in a new environment," he was quoted as saying.

IBM acquired Red Hat in 2019 for nearly $34 billion in one of the largest software acquisitions in history.

In an email to employees, Hicks said the cuts "will focus on general and administrative" positions, and not affect positions "directing selling to customers or building out products".

He said employees in some countries would be notified of layoffs on Monday, while others would be told over the course of the current fiscal quarter.

Earlier this year, IBM confirmed it planned to lay off around 3,900 employees from its global 260,000 workforce.

The IBM layoffs are a result of the spinoff of IT infrastructure services provider Kyndryl business and part of the AI unit called `Watson Health`.

The layoffs were likely to cause a charge of $300 million in the January-March period to the company, according to IBM Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh.