GLOBAL giant IBM is wielding the axe in Greenock by moving top jobs abroad.

A stunned workforce were told that highly-skilled work would be shipped out to Hungary and China by the end of the year.

At least a dozen people in IBM are affected by the latest jobs blow for Inverclyde.

This year alone, the total job losses in Spango Valley, which all once belonged to IBM, has topped 700.

Union bosses and employees fear it is the strongest signal yet that the computer giant plans to move out of Greenock completely.

And they are now calling for a boycott on all IBM products to hit them where it hurts — in the pocket.

A source in IBM told the Tele: "We don't know if they are going to offer the workers a package and make them redundant. We will not know anything until the bosses come over from the US."

IBM has already off-loaded all its manufacturing work and now jobs in the high end of the market, including buying and engineering, are to go.

The Tele understands Hungarian workers are now coming in to shadow IBM employees in Greenock.

Manufacturing union Amicus blasted the computer giants.

Regional organiser Brian McDonald, from Greenock, said: "This certainly doesn't surprise me. As I said when they got rid of manufacturing, give it two or three years and I expect them to be gone completely from Greenock. I thought the call centre would be secure, but it won't be.

"IBM have been very cute at doing it all. They have never made anybody redundant — they brought in Sanmina and Lenovo to do it all to keep their name out of it."

He is now calling on people to take action by boycotting all IBM products.

IBM declined to comment.

Sanmina, based in Spango Valley, announced in January it was shutting down manufacturing in Greenock with the loss of 300 jobs. All their work has since been moved to Hungary.

In June, another company based on the site, Chinese firm Lenovo, axed 390 workers.

This story appeared in the Greenock Telegraph on Thu, 10 Aug, 2006