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IBM is ending U.S. visa and green-card sponsorship for the majority of roles that have used such sponsorship in IBM Consulting, narrowing an immigration-support practice the company says has already been declining for years.
“IBM Consulting participates in U.S. high-skilled visa programs to address skill shortages,” an IBM spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday. “That participation has been declining for a number of years and as skill availability and client need have evolved, we have opted to discontinue visa and green card sponsorship for the majority of such roles in IBM Consulting.”
The statement concerns the consulting business and the majority of the relevant sponsorship roles. It does not announce an end to sponsorship for every IBM job or every position across the company.
IBM’s stated reason is a change in skill availability and client needs, alongside a decline in the consulting unit’s participation in high-skilled visa programs over several years. The statement does not quantify how many positions or employees are affected.
IBM describes its consulting business as a global professional-services operation with more than 150,000 consultants serving clients in more than 175 countries. That worldwide workforce figure is not a count of U.S. visa holders or people affected by the sponsorship decision.
The business provides services including strategy, technology consulting, systems implementation and managed services. The sponsorship change addresses how the unit supports immigration applications for relevant U.S. roles; it is not, by itself, an announced layoff total.
The spokesperson’s statement does not give an exact effective date, list exceptions or explain how individual pending cases and existing immigration statuses will be handled. It should not be read as establishing a uniform outcome for every employee who has previously received sponsorship.
JBizNews Desk | Business & Economy
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