“Intel is going to fire thousands of people over disappointing PC market”

Intel plans to lay off thousands of employees to cut costs and cope with the disappointing PC market, sources tell Bloomberg. The company is expected to announce the layoffs this month. Intel employed 128,200 people in July.

The sources speak opposite Bloomberg about a ‘major reduction in staff’ and that thousands of people will probably have to leave. The exact number is not clear. Intel would like to announce the mass layoffs around the publication of the quarterly results at the end of this month. The layoffs would mainly take place in the company’s sales and marketing departments, where about 20 percent of the people would have to leave.

The American company should cut costs because the demand for PC processors has fallen sharply. Since this year, the number of PCs delivered worldwide has fallen after years of growth. In addition, Intel is struggling to regain market share from AMD. In its last quarterly results in July, Intel warned to expect less revenue and profits due to falling sales figures after sales of Intel’s consumer division fell by 25 percent. The company also indicated that it is looking at cost-saving measures.

Intel’s last round of mass layoffs was in 2016, when 12,000 jobs were cut. With the new round of layoffs, Intel would like to save ten to fifteen percent on fixed costs. Earlier this month, Intel announced that it would float autonomous driving company Mobileye on the stock exchange, in order to use the money to build more chip factories.