Intel has begun laying off staff in California as part of its continuous cost-cutting and restructuring strategy, led by new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Lip-Bu Tan.
According to a CRN report, the layoffs will affect 107 of Intel's employees who work at its Santa Clara headquarters.
The job cuts are set to begin on July 15 and were disclosed in a filing made under California's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which requires notification when 50 or more employees are laid off within 30 days.
Intel is also closing down its automotive chip unit, which was based in Munich, Germany.
The division was led by Intel veteran Jack Weast and has been developing software-defined vehicle systems. Most of the unit’s employees are expected to lose their jobs.
The company has informed affected employees that they would receive either a 60-day notice or a shorter four-week notice, as well as nine weeks of pay and benefits. The layoffs in California, on the other hand, are part of a larger wave that is slated to hit Intel's global production operations in mid-July, when the company plans to lay off an additional 20 per cent of its personnel.
The job cuts come after Tan previously announced that 15 to 20 per cent of Intel's personnel would be laid off in an effort to optimise operations.
The employment losses affect many technical positions critical to Intel's chip development. These include physical design engineers, logic and product development experts, and cloud software architects.
Several senior leadership positions are being abolished, including engineering managers, business leads, and even a vice-president of Information Technology (IT). Employees at the Santa Clara location work on CPU (Central Processing Units) and GPUs (Graphics Processing Units).
An internal letter acquired by The Oregonian earlier this month stated that Intel's manufacturing team will be slashed by up to 20 per cent. The company's in-house chip production segment, which is an important part of its foundry business, is expected to be hurt the worst.
Intel's current round of layoffs follows huge job losses in 2024, when the corporation laid off 15,000 people. With additional cuts on the way, the corporation is preparing for what could be one of its most significant workforce reductions in years.
Intel's latest measures come at a challenging moment for the whole technology industry. According to Layoffs.fyi, more than 62,000 Information Technology (IT) workers are expected to lose their jobs in 2025 alone. Major giants like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta have all announced job layoffs as they rethink their strategies and reduce spending.