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Last year at this time, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) employed about 355,000 people globally.

While this years' overall figures aren't out yet, figures for the emerging markets, especially India and China, have been let out, and they are pretty strong.

A person close to the Human Resources department at IBM, says in the four major emerging markets:  Russia, India Brazil and China, overall employment should reach about 100,000 by the end of 2007. An IBM spokesman, Edward Barbini, cited by the Wall Street Journal online, said that the numbers are accurate.

He added that some of the employment growth is related to outsourcing, manufacturing and software development formerly done in the U.S. and Europe, but also said a lot of it is from domestic growth of the individual countries. Much of that is from products and services provided to the respective governments, as well as larger companies.

India is by far the largest presence by IBM in the emerging markets, with employment expected to be at about 73,000 workers by the end of 2007. Last year they had 52,000 workers in the country. China will grow to about 13,000 this year, about a third above last years' 10,000. Brazil will finish with close to 10,000 workers for the company, also about a third over last year. Russia will end with about 4,000.