GREENOCK IBM workers fear hundreds of local jobs could go following a huge £1.4 billion outsourcing deal with a Chinese company.

The computer giant has agreed to offload a server business to Beijing-based Lenovo — the world’s biggest PC maker.

A total of 200 staff in Inverclyde are said to have been told by bosses that they will be affected by the switchover.

One worker told the Telegraph: “There is real concern that jobs and livelihoods will ultimately be lost as a result.

“We’re being told that no-one will lose their job — but we’ve been told that before and the complete opposite has happened.

“Hundreds lost their jobs here after IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo a few years back.” Another local IBM source said that the current arrangement is for 200 people to be given the option of transferring to Lenovo under TUPE employment rules.

But the insider added: “There aren’t many people who are taking what is being said right now as gospel.

“People have been systematically axed here in Greenock before, after Lenovo did a deal with IBM.” The Tele told in 2006 how the Chinese company decided not to renew a lease on rented premises locally after taking over IBM’s personal computing division — which included the ThinkPad range.

Nearly 400 workers lost their jobs when Lenovo moved its operations from Greenock to Bratislava in Slovakia just a year after the takeover.

The Telegraph told last December how IBM workers in Greenock who recently transferred to another company had expressed fears about their jobs.

The staff have new bosses following a deal between IBM and SYNNEX Corporation, who took over part of IBM’s customer care business.

It is understood that the new deal for IBM server business ‘x86’ will be fully completed before the end of 2014.

Shares in Lenovo — which was being hurt by a slowdown in global demand for desktop computers — rose by nine per cent on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange following news of the acquisition.

IBM — who said today that redundancies were not ‘anticipated’ — refused to confirm the number of Greenock-based workers who are said to be affected by the deal.

A spokeswoman would only say that the number involved globally was 7,500.

She said: “There are no redundancies anticipated.”