Intel announced during the presentation of its quarterly figures that it will lay off approximately 24,000 employees this year. At the same time, the company is withdrawing from major investment projects in Germany, Poland, and Costa Rica.
The move is part of a major restructuring led by new CEO Lip-Bu Tan (photo). He wants to make the company more efficient and agile. Last month, Intel already hinted that it would lay off between 15 and 20 percent of its factory workers.
According to Intel, its workforce at the end of 2024 consisted of nearly 110,000 people, of whom it considers 99,500 to be core employees. By the end of this year, the company wants to retain 75,000 core employees. This represents a reduction of about a quarter. The job cuts come on top of earlier cost-cutting measures, such as the sale of business units and the discontinuation of less profitable activities.
In Germany and Poland, Intel is canceling plans for new chip factories and assembly facilities. The company originally wanted to invest billions of euros in these countries, which would have created thousands of jobs. Those plans are now off the table. In Costa Rica, assembly and testing activities will be moved to larger facilities in Vietnam. However, more than 2,000 employees will remain active in engineering and support functions.
Cuts are also being made in the United States. The construction of new factories in Ohio is being delayed. According to Intel’s CFO, David Zinsner, the company will continue to invest in this location, but only if market demand justifies it.
During the presentation of the quarterly figures, Lip-Bu Tan indicated that Intel had invested too much in the past without sufficient certainty about demand. From now on, he wants to build on the basis of concrete customer needs. In his view, it is no longer sustainable to build first and then hope that demand will follow.
Big quarterly loss
The reorganization has financial consequences. Intel reported a quarterly loss of $2.9 billion, partly due to restructuring costs of $1.9 billion. Revenue remained stable at $12.9 billion. The data center division grew slightly, while revenue from PC chips declined.
Intel expects to save $17 billion in costs this year. At the same time, the company will continue to work on new products. The Panther Lake laptop chips are scheduled for release later this year. The successor, Nova Lake, is expected to be released at the end of 2026. Tan will take final responsibility for all major chip designs and wants to monitor the company’s technical direction more closely.