Meanwhile, in New York, IBM has issued an ultimatum that there’ll be no more voluntary redundancies, after getting a poor response from its Global Technology Services division.

Big Blue had offered the redundancies in February in a bid to gently ease out more than 1200 frontline technical staff. Now the company says not enough workers have voluntarily come forward and future redundancies will go ahead whether staff want them or not.

The company is making the cuts as it increases its use of automation, displacing subcontractors and closing some facilities and datacentres.