OCTOBER 26, 2024 - 500 IN SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA
The company plans to lay off another 516 employees in Santa Clara, California.
According to CEO Pat Gelsinger, “This is painful news for me to share. I know it will be even more difficult for you to read.”
OCTOBER 16, 2024 — 1,300 IN OREGON
Proceeding with its restructuring, the company has targeted 1,300 employees for layoffs in November 2024.
According to a company spokesperson, “As part of the broad-based cost savings plan we announced in August, we are making the hard but necessary decisions to reduce the size of our workforce.These are the most difficult decisions we ever make, and we are treating people with care and respect. These changes support our strategy to become a leaner, simpler, and more agile company as we position Intel for long-term sustainable growth.”
SEPTEMBER 1, 2024 — MAJOR CHANGES ON THE HORIZON
Intel is working with investment bankers to explore its options, which is never a good sign as it precedes major restructuring, divestments, and further reductions in the workforce.
Under consideration is the separation between its chip design business and its manufacturing facilities—possibly spinning off the manufacturing side of the business to boost profits and juice its Wall Street investors.
AUGUST 1, 2024 — INTEL TARGETS 15% OF ITS WORKFORCE, 15,000 EMPLOYEES AT RISK
The company has announced plans to cut around 15,000 employees, eliminate its fiscal fourth-quarter dividend, and reduce capital expenditures. A major force reduction," implementing a comprehensive reduction in spending, including a more than 15% headcount reduction, to resize and refocus.”
According to CEO Pat Gelsinger, “This is an incredibly hard day for Intel as we are making some of the most consequential changes in our company’s history. This is painful news for me to share. I know it will be even more difficult for you to read.”
According to an SEC filing…
“Second-quarter results were impacted by gross margin headwinds from the accelerated ramp of our AI PC product, higher than typical charges related to non-core businesses and the impact from unused capacity,” said David Zinsner, Intel CFO. “By implementing our spending reductions, we are taking proactive steps to improve our profits and strengthen our balance sheet. We expect these actions to meaningfully improve liquidity and reduce our debt balance while enabling us to make the right investments to drive long-term value for shareholders.”
Cost-Reduction Plan
As Intel nears the completion of rebuilding a sustainable engine of process technology leadership, it announced a series of initiatives to create a sustainable financial engine that accelerates profitable growth, enables further operational efficiency and agility, and creates capacity for ongoing strategic investment in technology and manufacturing leadership. These initiatives follow the establishment of separate financial reporting for Intel Products and Intel Foundry, which provides a "clean sheet" view of the business and has uncovered significant opportunities to drive meaningful operational and cost efficiencies. The actions include structural and operating realignment across the company, headcount reductions, and operating expense and capital expenditure reductions of more than $10 billion in 2025 compared to previous estimates. As a result of these actions, Intel aims to achieve clear line of sight toward a sustainable business model with the ongoing financial resources and liquidity needed to support the company’s long-term strategy.
AUGUST 26, 2023 — 315 CALIFORNIA LAYOFFS
Intel plans another round of job cuts and will lay off 315 employees at the end of the month citing cost cuts.
The job cuts impact a total of 315 employees, split between 175 at the company’s Santa Clara, California headquarters, 89 in Folsom, California, and 51 in San Jose, California.
According to a previous statement, “Intel is working to accelerate its strategy while navigating a challenging macro-economic environment. We are focused on identifying cost reductions and efficiency gains through multiple initiatives, including some businesses and function-specific workforce reductions in areas across the company. These are difficult decisions, and we are committed to treating impacted employees with dignity and respect.”
JANUARY 20, 2023 — 201 EMPLOYEES IN SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA; MORE ELSEWHERE
Intel has announced that the number of Mission Campus employees scheduled to terminate during this period has increased to 201 and The Intel layoffs in Santa Clara are scheduled to be completed by January 31, 2023.
Intel is also adding to the 111 job cuts previously announced in Folsom, California, at a campus dedicated to research and development. There are now 176 layoffs effective January 31, 2023, and an additional 167 job cuts effective March 15, 2023.
DECEMBER 5, 2022 — 291 EMPLOYEES IMMEDIATELY TARGETED, MORE LATER
The company has announced it is cutting about 90 jobs at its headquarters campus in Santa Clara and around 201 statewide, although the number could go higher.
The cuts primarily affect Intel's research and development center in Folsom, California, as well as its Santa Clara, California, campus, and are part of the broader layoffs and cost-cutting efforts previously announced.
OCTOBER 12, 2022 — MAJOR CUTS AHEAD
Facing a major decline in desktop processors in the private and public sector, it appears that Intel is planning a major reduction in force in the near future — possibly announcing the cuts in their Third Quarter earnings report due to drop on October 27, 2022.
The impact is estimated to be in the low thousands with sales and marketing seeing major reductions.
The move was telegraphed in their Second Quarter earnings call — “We are also lowering core expenses in calendar year '22, and we'll look to take additional actions in the second half of the year,”
JANUARY 13, 2021 — NEW CEO, NEW INITIATIVES, NEW COST-CUTTING, AND LAYOFFS
The company has announced the dismissal of CEO Bob Swan with former VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger—the onetime chief technology officer of Intel, effective February 15, 2021.
Like all such changes at the top, especially at the behest of an activist investor, employees can expect divestitures, consolidations, elimination of duplicative functions, and major headcount reductions to impress the Board, investors, and Wall Street.
DECEMBER 30, 2020 — WARNING: ACTIVIST INVESTOR KNOWN FOR DEMANDING DIVESTMENTS, COST-CUTTING, AND REDUCTIONS IN FORCE BUYS INTO INTEL.
Dan Loeb’s New York-based hedge fund, Third Point Management, has taken a significant $1 BILLION+ stake in Intel. Of course, this does not bode well for employees in non-productive areas.
The bad news comes by a message from Third Point to the Intel Board of Directors “suggesting” they hire an adviser to explore “strategic alternatives.”
According to Loeb, “Without immediate change at Intel, we fear that America’s access to leading-edge semiconductor supply will erode, forcing the U.S. to rely more heavily on geopolitically unstable East Asia to power everything from PCs to data centers to critical infrastructure and more.”
One of the most important changes in Intel would be to split design and manufacturing. Outsourcing its chip fabrication would allow Intel to utilize more third-party vendors to speed up the production cycle, cut costs, and further customize chips without investing in new fabrication production lines.
Look for the words “increased shareholder value” and “special dividends.” It is also possible that an investor consortium could take Intel private and pare the company to the bone to pay back some of the added interest expense burdens.
JUNE 23, 2020 — INTEL LOSING MAJOR CUSTOMER IN APPLE
Apple has announced that it will be transitioning to its own chip design and manufacturing over the next two years. This will end another source of revenue for Intel.
FEBRUARY 14, 2020 — 129 WORKERS AT 4 SANTA CLARA LOCATIONS
The company has announced the March 31, 2020 layoffs of 129 employees in four Santa Clara locations.
According to a company spokesperson, “As we move into 2020, our business units are focusing their resources on areas where we have the greatest opportunity for growth and, as part of that, some are planning to eliminate roles associated with projects that are no longer priorities.”
JANUARY 22, 2020 — MEDIA REPORTS THAT INTEL PLANNING A MASS LAYOFF
According to a number of technology media outlets, Intel is planning to reorganize its Data Center Group and reduce the headcount between 25% - 33%. It appears that the decision is being driven by the company’s desire to move beyond traditional CPU chips and into high-performance GPUs and devices used in large-scale artificial intelligence and analytics as well as mass-market chips that will be used to power the Internet of Things such as smart appliances.
APRIL 1, 2019 — NO JOKE: INTEL LAID OFF HUNDREDS OF IT WORKERS
Intel Corporation has acknowledged the layoffs of hundreds of employees but declines to provide a specific number.
According to a company spokesperson, “Changes in our workforce are driven by the needs and priorities of our business, which we continually evaluate. We are committed to treating all impacted employees with professionalism and respect.”
It appears that many of the layoffs were internal IT administrators whose duties may have been transferred to the large Indian outsourcer Infosys as a consolidation move to improve accountability and provide additional flexibility to the company.
JUNE 12, 2018 — Original post…
On April 19, 2016, in an email to employees, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, announced a major restructuring effort.
“Since I became CEO nearly three years ago, I have been working with our leadership team and all of you to transform our company from a PC company to a company that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices. The data center and Internet of Things businesses are now Intel’s primary growth engines and combined with memory and FPGAs, form and fuel a virtuous cycle of growth. Together, these businesses delivered $2.2 billion in revenue growth last year, made up 40% of our revenue, and the majority of our operating profit."
"We expect that this initiative will result in the reduction of up to 12,000 positions globally. This will be achieved by voluntary and involuntary departures, global site consolidation, and efficiency initiatives. The majority of these actions will be communicated over the next 60 days, with some spanning into 2017.”
The handwriting was clearly on the wall and nobody should really be surprised that Intel would be announcing additional layoffs, this time approximately 65 employees at three of Intel’s Silicon Valley campuses.
According to Intel spokesperson, John McKimmey … “Intel has decided to reduce its workforce by laying off approximately 65 employees at its facilities. Additional benefits including payment based on years of service and career transition service will also be offered to employees in exchange for a standard release agreement.”
Of course, by “standard release agreement,” Intel means non-disclosure agreement not to speak to anyone about the layoffs or other company business.
It should be noted that Intel’s layoff policies are being examined by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over allegations of age discrimination in previous layoffs extending back to 2015. Intel categorically denies any allegations that it targeted older employees in the layoffs saying, “Factors such as age, race, national origin, gender, immigration status, or other personal demographics were not part of the process when we made those decisions.”
There is little or no doubt that the chip marketplace is changing especially with the move away from desktop and laptop computing to mobile devices and the lightweight browsers used to connect users with the growing cloud services marketplace. For many years, I was a purist, insisting on Intel motherboards, chipsets, and processors for our numerous system builds. Today, I have no such concern and am willing to accept anything that works.
Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere ... are you now wondering, Am I Next?