International Business Machines (IBM), a blue-chip tech company that has managed to continue to grow despite the global recession, is expected to eliminate a large number of U.S. employees from its global-business services unit, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Weeks after slashing nearly 5,000 jobs, IBM is expected to shift the work of a large number of U.S. workers to IBM employees working in India, the latest example of a successful company that is continuing to slash costs and take advantage of cheap Asian labor, the Journal reported.

Representatives from IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. IBM tends to carry out "stealth" layoffs by avoiding public disclosure.

IBM managers have been receiving training from human-resources specialists on handling the layoffs, the Journal reported. 

The layoffs could impact a sizable amount of employees, as the global-business services unit is the tech giant's largest in terms of revenue and employment, with 180,000 workers worldwide, the Journal reported. 

IBM isn't alone among profitable companies cutting costs to weather the economic storm -- for example, both Microsoft (MSFT) and Caterpillar (CAT) announced plans earlier this year to slash 5,000 jobs each.

However, the apparent cost-cutting moves for IBM come as the company is said to be in talks to take over rival tech company Sun Microsystems (JAVA) for up to $8 billion. 

The latest layoffs will only add to an already bleak labor picture in the U.S., which has been stuck in a recession since Dec. 2007. Last week the Labor Department said jobless claims filed by people out of work for more than one week soared by 185,000 to 5.47 million. The U.S. unemployment rate stands at 8.1% -- the highest level since Dec. 1983.

Despite the weak economic picture, IBM's shares have risen 16.8% year-to-date and are up nearly 22% over the past 13 weeks.