Intel to Trim Workforce to 75,000 “Core Employees”

Wow, where do we even start with Intel, right? It’s like this whirlwind of layoffs and strategy shifts that’s just kinda dizzying. So, the last few years have been like a rough roller coaster for them. Not that kind of fun, though. Just last month, boom, they announced chopping thousands of jobs in the US. All this for the sake of reshuffling their focus towards AI. Whatever that means, honestly.

Okay, so today, after spilling the beans on their Q2 earnings, they said they’re gonna slim down to about 75,000 “core employees.” Do the math, and it looks like about 24,000 folks are getting the boot. Yikes, right? And don’t even get me started on their plans to bail out on making big fab facilities in Germany and Poland. Those places could have brought tons of jobs. But nooo, not happening.

Side note, there’s this weird plan to bump some operations from Costa Rica to Vietnam. Kind of a shakeup in their testing and assembly operations, you know? But hey, not all doom and gloom—some Costa Rica employees will still have their gigs. Small wins.

Intel’s CFO dude, David Zinsner, mentioned Ohio might get its construction plans slowed down too, which sounds… not great? This whole consolidation thing is supposed to save them $17 billion next year. Yet here they are, still bleeding money this quarter.

What’s next on this crazy Intel saga? No clue when the next layoffs hit, but it’s like watching a train wreck in slo-mo. So bizarre.

And for you folks out of the loop, here’s a quick recap of Intel’s turbulent journey. Once upon a time, they were snackin’ on success like it’s a buffet from the ’80s through early 2000s. Those were the glory days until they kinda got all comfy and fell behind. Didn’t hop on the mobile processors and AI train like Apple and NVIDIA did. Oops?

Fast forward, they lost $7 billion in 2023 after bleeding $5.2 billion the year before. Why? Mainly ‘cause they didn’t keep up with the competition. Everyone’s into mobile chips now, and AI’s big—Intel’s trying hard to play catch-up. They released their Intel Core Ultra Series 1 AI chips in 2024, underwhelmed everyone, then pushed forward with Series 2 in the same year. Hustle much?

Then, their former CEO, Pat Gelsinger, put his foot in his mouth. He ticked off TSMC, you know, the big fish that does over 60% of chip manufacturing. Made some comment about Taiwan not being stable. Not a smooth move, dude. Result? Lost a massive discount deal with TSMC, which blew up their production costs.

And randomly, noticed more PCs are ditching Intel for AMD. Just saying.

So, what’s next? Intel’s banking on new chips like Panther Lake and Nova Lake. Fingers crossed they don’t fumble this one because, man, they need something to go right.