US chipmaker Intel plans to cut 20% of its workforce, or more than 20,000 people, to save costs and streamline its organization.
Reuters reported that Intel will announce plans to cut its workforce by 20% this week as part of a turnaround plan by new CEO Lip-Bu Tan.
As of December 28, 2024, Intel had 108,900 employees, including thousands of employees at Altera, an independent company co-owned by Intel and Silver Lake.
Previously, Intel also laid off about 15,000 people in August 2024. The new cuts mainly affect non-technical positions, such as administrative, sales, marketing and support functions. The manufacturing and engineering teams are not affected as Intel is aiming to become a leading semiconductor manufacturer and needs resources to develop competitive products.
The restructuring plan aims to simplify operations and focus the company on its technical strengths, after a period of prolonged business instability. Many reports show that Intel's personal computer chip revenue is gradually decreasing. Sales of processing chips for data centers are also gradually falling into the hands of rival AMD. In addition, the deal to supply chips to Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car arm, was canceled. Another failure under former CEO Pat Gelsinger was that the 18A manufacturing process, which was expected to bring new revenue to the company, became a burden due to reliability problems.
Mr. LipBu Tan, who became Intel's CEO in March, is pushing to clean up overlapping management layers, eliminating redundant positions. In addition, the company may also reduce the number of projects it has.
Intel is scheduled to report its quarterly results on April 24. The company did not comment on the information.
via Reuters, Tom's Hardware