IBM Plans To Hire 25,000 Workers Over Next Four Years

International Business Machine Corp. Chief Executive Ginni Rometty said Tuesday the tech firm plans to hire about 25,000 new workers over the next four years. In an opinion piece for USA Today, Rometty called the new hires "new collar" jobs, meaning not traditional white collar or blue collar positions but those "that employers in many industries demand, but which remain largely unfilled." IBM plans to hire about 6,000 U.S. workers to these positions in 2017, Rometty said. The announcement comes after a slew of layoffs at Big Blue with an estimated 14,000 workers laid off back in May. At the end of 2015, IBM reported having just under 378,000 workers worldwide, down from around 434,000 at the end of 2012. IBM shares were unchanged after hours, after closing up 1.7% at $168.29 Tuesday.