RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – IBM has told officials that it’s cutting some 20% of its European workforce – or about 10,000 jobs – as the tech giant prepares to split into two companies, according to Bloomberg News.

The report Wednesday comes after numerous other sources reported last week that IBM was making cuts.

However, information about any job cuts in North Carolina or the US remains scant. And IBM has posted job openings at its large campus in RTP. IBM also owns Raleigh-based Red Hat.

Most of the cuts in Europe will come in Germany and the U.K., Bloomberg said, citing an unnamed union official. But France operations also reportedly are taking a big hit.

An IBMer posted at Watching IBM about France operations: “And now they announce between 24 and 28 percent of jobs destruction (around 1500 people…)”

IBM confirmed changes are being made.

“Our staffing decisions are made to provide the best support to our customers in adopting an open hybrid cloud platform and AI capabilities,” an IBM spokeswoman said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg. “We also continue to make significant investments in training and skills development for IBMers to best meet the needs of our customers.”

As reported last week, the biggest cuts are hitting IBM service organizations. Those groups are to be spun off in a new company while IBM focuses its attention on fast-growing businesses such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

The spinoff is expected to occur next year.

As Bloomberg noted, the cuts are not a surprise.

“We’re taking structural actions to simplify and streamline our business,” IBM Chief Financial Officer James Kavanaugh said in a third-quarter earnings call in October. “We expect the fourth-quarter charge to our operating results of about $2.3 billion.”

IBM is moving to cut thousands of jobs, reports and workers say