Intel Cuts Jobs out of Embarrassment

From CNet to ZDNet and the Wall Street Journal, the word is Intel Corporation (INTC) will cut between 10,000 to 20,000 of its 100,000 strong (or weak) workforce. My source puts the job cut count already at 3,000 with 13,000 or more coming soon, although Geekygirl seems relatively optimistic about her position at Intel ahead of the official job cut announcement on Tuesday, . That would put the layoff count near the upper range of the estimate, and the jobs being cut most likely won’t be limited to the marketing as reported in the Sacremento Mercury News.After recent competitive pressure from rival Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), a competition in which Intel is getting their heads handed to them, Intel has been pressured into an “internal efficiency study.” It is obvious that Intel isn’t getting spanked just because they hired too many marketing folks (but then again, if their marketing represents the 10,000-20,000 employees that they are laying off, maybe they did over hire). The truth is a tech company should not and do not live and die by their marketing. Rather, they must rely on their engineering R&D which, for a company of that size with the resources and legacy, is really dogging it. I mean, come on! Every recent chip has been reverse engineered from an AMD chip.

I know engineers who have barely been with Intel for a month when the manager who hired them got booted before they did. Also, teams and such are being “spun off” or “sold,” but its just a fancy way of laying off people and keeping the jobs cut number reasonable. What are all these employees going to do? True, Silicon Valley is once again booming with opportunities like it was 1999, but what about those remote Intel towns like Dupont, Washington? If the whole town loses its job and Intel isn’t hiring, who is going to buy the houses of the laid-off workers so they can hop to Silicon Valley?

C’mon Intel, stop shifting the attention and blame to the little guys, your little guys, when the management at the top can’t put together a decent game plan and manage their human resources. Can we please get some engineers up top so they actually understand their products and how to make the products successful? Yeah, take that from the AMD playbook too…promote some engineers, not fire. If Intel doesn’t do this and soon, there’s no turning around this company no matter how many people they fire, and I’ll be loading up on AMD stock and shorting Intel. Maybe all of you soon-to-be Ex-Intel employees should do the same…Intel can still make you money even if they fired you.

P.S., it is sad that those of us in society who have invested the most time and energy to become technical professionals are at the mercy of such social conditions:

The reality is that job security no longer exists in today’s environment. The best thing we can do is continue to learn new skills and actively work to evolve our areas of expertise staying aligned with the constantly changing technological environment allowing us to remain valuable in our current jobs or as we move on to the next project.

~Geekygirl Dawn Foster