IBM has set up a $25 million fund to retrain and upgrade the skills of its workers and business partners.
IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano said the $25 million fund dedicated to training would be called the Human Capital Alliance.
It will help IBM employees who seek training out of concern that they could lose their jobs to technical experts overseas.
Palmisano announced the two-year fund at the company's PartnerWorld conference held in Las Vegas.
He said a global marketplace for technology skills, such as software programming, was good for the economy, but US technology professionals needed help in competing for jobs.
"It is not appropriate for the American ethos to wish ill of countries simply because they are trying to improve the standards of living of their people," Palmisano said. "At the same time, we can work together to re-skill people to move to (new technology) areas."
IBM will make the retraining money available to business partners as well.
The company said it would try to place laid-off IBM employees with partners once they had been retrained.
Palmisano said the fund would focus on developing skills that were in demand, such as information technology architects, Linux experts, and hardware and software professionals specialising in open standards.
Firms working with IBM in India as business partners have welcomed the move, describing it as a forerunner of more such programmes by US companies struggling to reap the benefits of lower costs through outsourcing without being castigated by US politicians for killing jobs at home.
"This will help major US corporations retain public confidence in the US while farming out outsourcing contracts," said the managing director of an IBMÂ business partner. "You have to bow to the storm or you will break."
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