RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – IBM is laying off employees in its high-profile Watson Health group, and workers in the Triangle are among those being hit.

One worker, speaking about the layoffs which hit without warning on Thursday, told WRAL TechWire: “It was an ugly day.”

IBMers are reporting the job cuts in posts at a Facebook page devoted to coverage of IBM workforce issues. Additional post have been made throughout the day Friday.

Two of the first posts about what IBM calls a “resource action” came from Triangle-based workers.

“Lots of Truven folks in RTP laid off today,” one employee noted.

Added another: “Yes I am [in] Watson Health in Durham and was RA’d today. Former Truven employee.”

Truven refers to a health data analytics company that IBM acquired in 2016 for $2.6 billion. Truven, which was based in Michigan, had operations in Durham that were acquired as part of the deal.

The layoffs reportedly began Thursday.

“I just got notified that I am affected by a resource action. I am in the Platform for Health, LSC Infrastructure DevOps group and have been working at IBM for 2 years and 11 months now,” an employee wrote.

“It looks like a lot of other people in Watson Health were affected. This could be huge.”

Layoffs were reported to have been especially heavy in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Denver.

“Wanted to share anonymously about a massive layoff in Watson Health, potentially limited to Provider acquisitions (Phytel, Explorys, Truven). They are laying off 50-70% of staff today,” an IBMer wrote on Thursday.

“Not sure about total affected since there’s no transparency, but our Dallas office has 230 people. Cleveland and Truven have more, I believe. I was laid off this morning.”

Another worker reported:

“IBM Watson Health has initiated a significant RA across multiple offices. The Provider division in Dallas has seen at least 80% affected and 30% in the Truven customer experience group. Awaiting confirmation of details on severance packages but can confirm this was broad and not targeted at a specific demographic.”

Truven was one of several acquisitions IBM has made in the digital health sector as it expanded the role of Watson, its artificial intelligence group. Watson is one of the pillars of the reorganization strategy from hardware to software, AI, analytics and cloud put in place by current chair and CEO Ginni Rometty.

These are not the first cuts being made this year among units that have been emphasized by Rometty. Other layoffs were made in March. Somke cuts were made among Truven workers last summer as well.

IBM has yet to comment on the layoffs.

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Earlier this week, Rometty said that IBM would be adding 1,800 jobs – so-called “new collar” postions – in AI and other emerging initiatives.

IBM operates one of its largest campuses in RTP and employs several thousand workers across the state.

The RTP campus includes workers focusing on various Watson initiatives as well as cloud computing. One of the tech giant’s newest data centers in located in the Triangle.