Intel cuts hundreds of US workers just in time for Christmas

Intel has taken the jobs away from 311 California workers in the run-up to Christmas, according to the latest data available from the West Coast state’s Employment Development Department WARN filings.

The redundancies are set to affect 235 workers in the chipmaker’s Folsom offices, as well as 76 from other Santa Clara-based workspaces.

In all cases, workers have been given until the end of the month, and the end of this year, before they have their contracts cut.

Intel announces more redundancies

The company also laid off 140 workers in August, as well as around 500 others during the peak layoffs season of late 2022 and early 2023, according to data from layoffs.fyi.

Intel employs around 110,000 workers globally, making these headcount reductions reasonably small in terms of percentages, however layoffs continue to affect workers the same, whether in mass or in dribs and drabs.

A company spokesperson told The Register: “Intel is working to accelerate its strategy while reducing costs through multiple initiatives, including some business and function-specific workforce reductions in areas across the company.”

Around 13,000 of its workers are based in and around California’s biggest cities, and the company has already committed to investing more in US-based manufacturing processes, likely as a result of continuing geopolitical tensions spearheaded by tit-for-tat China-US import and export restrictions.

The spokesperson added: “These are difficult decisions, and we are committed to treating impacted employees with dignity and respect.”

TechRadar Pro has asked Intel for more information about the type of remuneration and/or redundancy packages that affected workers can expect as they look to transition to another role elsewhere.

Moreover, the company announced more than 12 months ago that it would be “driving $3 billion in cost reductions in 2023, growing to $8 billion to $10 billion in annualized cost reductions and efficiency gains by the end of 2025.”

Redundancies are never good news, for a company or its workers, but keeping them to a minimum is better news than we might have expected previously, given the scale of the cost reductions announced in October 2022.

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