AMD has confirmed it’s laying off roughly four percent of its global workforce, according to reports by TechCrunch and others. It’s not entirely clear how many people will be impacted by this move, or which divisions the laid off employees will be pulled from.
We can, however, do some math. The company had around 26,000 employees last year, according to an annual filing by AMD. Four percent of 26,000 comes out to just over 1,000 people. That’s a lot.
So that leads us to why. You already know the answer. It’s a bunch of corporate gobbledygook. “As a part of aligning our resources with our largest growth opportunities, we are taking a number of targeted steps,” an AMD spokesperson told CRN.
Don’t worry. The company also said it’s “committed to treating impacted employees with respect and helping them through this transition.” Engadget reached out to AMD for more information as to what that respect and help will look like. We’ll update this story if we find out anything.
This news comes after a fairly mixed Q3 earnings report. The company grew revenue and profit, but the gaming division saw a massive year-over-year decline of 69 percent, according to Wccftech. The company has also struggled to compete with NVIDIA in the world of AI chips.
Experts still predict that AMD will make nearly $33 billion in 2025, thanks to forthcoming next-gen GPUs. This isn’t enough for investors, however, as it’s “just” an increase of around $7 billion when compared to 2024. The company’s stock is down around four percent this year, and dropped further today. Capitalism demands massive and endless growth.
Rival (and occasional bestie) Intel has faced similar headwinds. The company announced over 15,000 layoffs earlier this year.
Source: www.engadget.com