NEW YORK (Reuters) - IBM will cut about 5,000 jobs in the US, adding to similarly large cuts in the past few months, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters yesterday.

The job cuts will account for more than four percent of IBM's US workforce, which totaled around 115,000 at the end of 2008. The sources, who were not authorised to speak publicly on the issue, said the cuts will mostly be in IBM's global services business, which includes outsourcing and consulting services.

An International Business Machines Corp. spokesman declined to comment. The company, which had a total workforce of 398,455 as of end 2008, has not disclosed how many jobs it has cut so far this year, but has said it was making "structural changes" to reduce spending and improve productivity.

IBM, which now earns around two-thirds of its revenue from outside the US, has been expanding its workforce in emerging markets like India and China.

At the end of 2009, employment in the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - totalled around 113,000.