Intel Laying Off Tens of Thousands of Employees: CEO Memo

At the end of 2024, Intel had 108,900 employees. Now the chipmaking giant is planning to cut over 33,000 jobs to cut the workforce to 75,000 employees by the end of the year.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, 65, said in a memo to staff on Thursday that Intel is implementing a plan to reduce its workforce by 15%. The layoffs are in addition to the approximately 21,000 roles (about 20% of Intel’s workforce) the company let go from April to June, which mainly focused on cutting down layers of middle management.

Intel previously announced in August that it was laying off 15% of its workforce, or over 15,000 employees, last year.

Related: Intel Requires Employees to Work From the Office More Often: ‘This Action Is Necessary’

In its second-quarter earnings report released on Thursday, Intel reported a sixth consecutive quarterly loss of $2.9 billion, nearly double its $1.6 billion loss at the same time a year earlier. The increased loss was mainly due to restructuring costs of $1.9 billion due to job cuts.

Tan stated in a conference call with analysts and investors following the report that over the past three months, he had completed “a systematic review” of Intel’s headcount and spending.

“Our goal is to reduce inefficiencies and redundancies and increase accountability at every level of the company,” Tan stated on the call. “We need to right-size and scale back the company.”

^{Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Photographer: Annabelle Chih/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

Tan, who was previously CEO of chip software company Cadence Design Systems from 2009 to 2021, is now tasked with turning Intel around after three years of declining revenue. He became Intel’s CEO on March 18, replacing former CEO Pat Gelsinger.

Intel faces competition from rival companies like Nvidia, which captured a greater share of the AI chip market. Nvidia had between 70% and 95% of the market share for AI chips last year, compared to Intel’s less than 1%, per CNBC.

Related: How Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Transformed a Graphics Card Company Into an AI Giant: ‘One of the Most Remarkable Business Pivots in History’

However, Intel is trying to catch up. The company plans to launch more efficient chips later this year to better compete with Nvidia and other rivals, per The Wall Street Journal.

Intel stock was down over 7% this past month, but up nearly 2% year-to-date.

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