Intel is rumored to be developing a $10 billion cost reduction strategy that could see up to 10,000 layoffs within the next six months. According to sources who asked to remain anonymous, Bloomberg has reported that a formal announcement regarding the staff reduction could arrive as early as this week. The layoffs are expected to happen globally, and are said to reduce its total staff from 110,000 to 100,000, and only include Intel’s core business and not any of its subsidiaries such as Altera FPGA. This step, should it be taken, will follow another in 2023 (per TechPowerUp) where it reduced staffing from 124,800 to the current count of 110,000.
Even as Intel is rumored to be making these job cuts the semiconductor manufacturer is still having to deal with controversy surrounding its 13th and 14th Gen Core processors. In a Q&A with tech media outlet Engadget, Intel recently said that it has no plans to recall either processor line as it prepares to launch a microcode patch to address the root cause for the instability issues of those processors. The ongoing problems for owners of the affected processors continue to be reported online further damaging Intel’s reputation and possibly hurting its consumer sales.
Stiff competition
Competition within the semiconductor market continues to grow as AMD and NVIDIA have gained market share in recent years. Samsung and Qualcomm have also been encroaching in the laptop market with their processors as they have been included in newer AI-powered laptops. Longtime customer Microsoft is said to be investigating the possibility of making its own ARM-based silicon as well, similar to Apple’s strategy, but has already switched from Intel to Qualcomm with its latest Surface Pro laptops. To say that Intel is facing more competition these days is an understatement but another part of this new rumor is that it intends to spend more money on research and development plus new fabrication facilities.