The semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm has announced cuts to its workforce, which will involve the layoff of 1,258 workers in California. This was confirmed by the company, according to Bloomberg, in a statement sent to the California Employment Development Department (United States).
The cut represents the dismissal of 2.5% of Qualcomm’s global workforce, currently made up of 50,000 workers. More than 750 of those laid off work in their engineering area, and among those who will have to leave their jobs there are even middle managers, such as team directors.
The rest of those dismissed correspond to different departments, and will be both technical positions and others related especially to legal aspects and accounting.
It is unclear whether Qualcomm will make layoffs elsewhere, because California is the only US state that requires companies to notify layoffs. This doesn’t happen in other countries either. As confirmed by the company, the layoffs will take place starting in the middle of next December.
The layoffs at Qualcomm are not exactly a surprise, since, the company noted last August, in a meeting with analysts from its CFO, Akash Palkhiwala, which would take proactive measures to cut expenses, as they faced a reduction in their income. They also commented that most of these measures would result in a reduction in their workforce. Thus, they hoped to have more capacity to make investments in key areas for their growth, in addition to pursuing opportunities to diversify their activity.
Qualcomm still makes the majority of its revenue from selling smartphone chips, an area that is seeing a sharp decline in sales. Everything indicates that the situation in the sector is not going to improve noticeably in the short term, so companies dedicated to the manufacturing of its components, as is the case with Qualcomm, are suffering the consequences.
