IBM to Add About 800 Jobs in Missouri by 2012

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Big Blue is opening another service delivery center in the United States and plans to hire 800 workers of varying levels by 2012, according to a news release.

This time the facility is in Columbia, Mo. It’s the third such U.S.-based center to be opened in the Midwest–the other two are in Dubuque, Iowa, and Lansing, Mich. All three are located in university- and college-rich areas, so there will be no shortage of entry-level and graduate student workers to employ.

Reading between the lines, these facilities appear to be U.S.-based data centers or server farms. Exact job titles and salary levels were not published by IBM, but expect a fair number of systems administration, storage specialist and data center operator positions. My guess is that they are mostly lower- to midlevel positions based on the description from the company (“The facility will be operational in the fall of 2010, and by the end of 2012 should be fully staffed with a variety of IT positions ranging from entry level up to experienced professional”). Remember, salaries in the Midwest outside of Chicago are generally lower than those paid on the coasts and in larger Southern cities.

IBM describes the facilities here:

“The new service delivery center will primarily support IBM’s U.S. strategic outsourcing clients, providing server systems operations, security services and end-user services, including maintenance and monitoring of computer hardware and software systems. The services utilize collaborative problem solving and defect prevention processes based on service management standards. Employees will manage the servers and storage systems that are critical for assuring optimal IT infrastructure performance for IBM’s clients.“

This is good PR for IBM, which gets to say, “Hey, see, we like American workers. We still hire here!” But does it make up for the 10,000 North American jobs lost at IBM in 2009? Hardly.

The company refuses to tell the media how many U.S.-based employees it has anymore or to even acknowledge when it has laid off workers, so take this announcement with a grain of salt. Let’s be honest here: IBM likes to tell you how many employees it has when it makes the company look good.

But if you’re in one of these cities in the Midwest and you need a data center gig, there are some opportunities here.