Intel plans to fire thousands of employees as tsunami of layoffs hits the tech sector, report

Intel Corp. is planning a major cut of its workforce that affect thousands of its employees as part of its effort to weather the slow personal-computer market.

The companywide cuts, which may be announced by the end of the month, will hit sales and marketing especially hard, according to a report late Tuesday. The announcement may come around the same time the semiconductor giant reports its third-quarter earnings report on Oct. 27.

Citing unidentified sources with knowledge of the upcoming job cuts, Bloomberg reported that the layoffs will be announced “as early as this month.” The tech giant currently has about 121,100 employees worldwide. The last time Intel laid off a large number of workers was back in April 2016, when the company cut 12,000 jobs, or 1% of its workforce, on the same day it reported its quarterly earnings.

The global economic downturn that started in the second quarter of this year is beginning to have a major impact on tech companies. As we reported early this month, over 32,000 tech workers lost their jobs in July. That number has since climbed to about 42,000, according to the latest tally from CrunchBase, a platform for finding business information about private and public companies.

In recent months, tech companies, crypto exchanges, financial firms, and banks have reduced their headcount and slowed hiring as global economic growth weakens due to looming recession, inflation, higher interest rates, the energy crisis in Europe, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Tech companies, especially social media platforms, are under pressure as companies cut back on ad budgets in response to rising costs and weakening consumer spending. Two months ago, Snap said it would miss revenue and profit targets for the second quarter and would have to slow hiring and lower spending.