IBM is laying off about 50 workers in Research Triangle Park as part of 1,315 U.S. job cuts to reduce expenses, and a union organizer said there could be more.

More layoffs of the same scale are expected today or Friday, said Lee Conrad, national coordinator for Alliance@IBM, a union attempting to organize IBM employees.

"Our sources have been consistently telling us that nationwide, 8,000 to 10,000 employees could be cut this year," he said. "It's big."

More layoffs wouldn't be unprecedented. In the spring of 2002, IBM eliminated about 14,000 jobs, including at least 500 in RTP, in a series of small cuts.

All of the 1,315 employees notified so far this week were within the company's global-services division, said Conrad, who has been receiving documents and e-mail messages from affected employees across the country. IBM also cut jobs in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Boulder, Colo.; Lexington, Ky.; and Southbury, Conn., he said.

The 50 people cut in RTP work in jobs within information technology delivery services, spokeswoman Gretchen McWhorter said.

The employees have all been notified, and they have 30 days to try to find other jobs within IBM, she said. If they're unsuccessful, they will receive severance packages, education assistance and extended benefits.

The New York company has about 11,000 employees at its Triangle campus, its largest in the world.

The local layoff numbers don't include contractors; McWhorter said she didn't know details about eliminated contractor jobs.

She said she didn't have any information about additional layoffs later this week. "I don't want to speculate on anything like that," McWhorter said.

Mark Loughridge, IBM's chief financial officer, told investors on a conference call last month that the company would be "rebalancing" its resources in the second quarter, an IBM euphemism for layoffs.

"We are putting in place a series of actions to address our U.S. cost base," he said.

The layoffs are intended to better match employees' skills and capabilities with clients' needs, McWhorter said.

The union blames offshoring for the job cuts. About 40 percent of IBM's employees work from home, Conrad said, making it easy for the company to send those jobs to remote locations overseas.