AMD to Cut its Workforce by About Four Percent

[TheLostSwede]

According to CRN, AMD is looking to make some cuts to its workforce of approximately 26,000 employees. The company hasn't announced a specific number, but in a comment to the publication AMD said that "as a part of aligning our resources with our largest growth opportunities, we are taking a number of targeted steps that will unfortunately result in reducing our global workforce by approximately 4 percent". In actual headcount numbers that should be just north of a thousand people that the company will let go. It's not clear which departments or divisions at AMD will be affected the most, but the cutback appears to be a response to AMD's mixed quarterly report.

AMD's statement also doesn't make it clear on exactly what the company will be putting its focus on moving forward, but CRN seems to suggest that the embedded and gaming business is where AMD is struggling. That said, it's not likely that AMD will put an increased focus on those businesses, but instead the company is more likely to invest more into its server products, least not to try and catch up with NVIDIA in the AI server market. According to CRN, AMD has also seen a strong demand in AI PCs, such as the Ryzen AI 300-series of mobile SoCs, so it's possible AMD will put an extra effort into is mobile product range. The Ryzen 9000-series is thankfully also doing well, so it's unlikely there will be any big cutbacks here. We already know that AMD is not going after NVIDIA with a new flagship GPU to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5000-series flagship SKU, so it's possible that the company will cut back on some people in its consumer GPU team for the time being, but this should become clear come CES in January.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Timbaloo]

Just as I wanted to replace my avatar...

 

[RayneYoruka]

Just as I wanted to replace my avatar...

Iguessnot!

 

[mechtech]

"the cutback appears to be a response to AMD's mixed quarterly report."

go private like valve and say bye bye to wallstreet

 

[oxrufiioxo]

The Gaming division basically on life support likely caused this...

 

[csendesmark]

"the cutback appears to be a response to AMD's mixed quarterly report."

go private like valve and say bye bye to wallstreet

That is great for Valve but don't forget Valve is mostly a service company (regarding income) and basically has monopoly on that if not "legally a monopoly" still owning all the competition in every important metric.
On the lay off part :

Everything is up, so it mean move.

 

[Divide Overflow]

Hopefully the axe comes down hardest on their marketing department.

 

[kapone32]

That is great for Valve but don't forget Valve is mostly a service company (regarding income) and basically has monopoly on that if not "legally a monopoly" still owning all the competition in every important metric.
On the lay off part :
View attachment 371593
Everything is up, so it mean move.

This is the narrative. My Company has lost 1000s of man hour knowledge by doing the same thing even though they make Billions a quarter. The Stock price is more important to these Companies than the Employees.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Do we have data what divisions are hit. Let's look at recent acquisitions, those should be targets and pretty norm.

There is a saying in my native language - jauna slota tīri slauka. It means new mop cleans better.

 

[eidairaman1]

Hopefully the axe comes down hardest on their marketing department.

They dont advertise or sponsor enough

Just as I wanted to replace my avatar...

Iguessnot!

Appears you two want a monopoly which will drive prices even further out.

 

[Zareek]

This is the narrative. My Company has lost 1000s of man hour knowledge by doing the same thing even though they make Billions a quarter. The Stock price is more important to these Companies than the Employees.

You gotta love publicly traded corporations, right! Ruin everything to please the rich...

 

[Wirko]

There is a saying in my native language - jauna slota tīri slauka. It means new mop cleans better.

You mean, if AMD hired a new CEO, he or she would be even better at firing emplyees?

 

[windwhirl]

Do we have data what divisions are hit

Nope

I guess some of these might be employees of Xilinx and other recent acquisitions, since it's normal for companies to lay off some employees they consider redundant after an acquisition, but no idea honestly.

 

[Fourstaff]

I wonder where this 4% will come from - chopping the wrong 4% can be painful.

You gotta love publicly traded corporations, right! Ruin everything to please the rich...

You all seem to think its going to be different with private companies.

 

[evernessince]

Do we have data what divisions are hit. Let's look at recent acquisitions, those should be targets and pretty norm.

There is a saying in my native language - jauna slota tīri slauka. It means new mop cleans better.

I suppose that makes sense for certain occupations but in the chip industry it's very hard to replace talent and it take awhile to integrate new employees.

Just look at Nvidia as an example, Jensen doesn't like firing employees. He prefers to push his employees over firing them.

 

[Solaris17]

I wonder where this 4% will come from - chopping the wrong 4% can be painful.

All these companies could live to lose middle management imo. Keep these companies engineering focused.

 

[A Computer Guy]

They are going to need to software harder now.

 

[Zareek]

I wonder where this 4% will come from - chopping the wrong 4% can be painful.


You all seem to think its going to be different with private companies.

It depends on the private company. Private equity is just as bad as public. In my experience, private mom-and-pop companies don't typically crap on their workers.

 

[Marcus L]

Didn't Intel do somehting similar a month or so ago though fired/slashed operating costs by billions or did I just dream that?

Intel is laying off over 15,000 employees and will stop ‘non-essential work’

That’s a lot of layoffs.

www.theverge.com

Intel to lay off more than 15% of workforce — 15,000 or more employees — encountered Meteor Lake yield issues, suspends dividend

From bad to worse.

www.tomshardware.com

Intel fires 15,000 employees as it intensifies focus on AI

The chip maker’s AI bet is yet to take off as margins continue to shrink and revenue growth remains challenging.

www.computerworld.com

My math, 4% of 26,000 is surely better than 15% of 100'000?

 

[LabRat 891]

Intel is shrinking and floundering, and AMD just released their hottest consumer-facing product in decades (maybe, ever).
This just doesn't seem like the right time for layoffs. Maybe, there's something else AMD sees on the horizon?

 

[OSdevr]

GPU division.

 

[Solaris17]

This just doesn't seem like the right time for layoffs. Maybe, there's something else AMD sees on the horizon?

I would argue, when you are doing well, thats also a good time to cut people, dont keep the bloat. You shouldnt cut just because your financials are bad.

 

[windwhirl]

Intel is shrinking and floundering, and AMD just released their hottest consumer-facing product in decades (maybe, ever).
This just doesn't seem like the right time for layoffs. Maybe, there's something else AMD sees on the horizon?

Personally, I'm sticking to my guess that AMD is just laying off people that are redundant because acquisitions means they get a number of people that they simply don't need and can't find a place for. It's better to just let them go and give them a severance package than to have them around doing nothing.

 

[ymdhis]

Intel is shrinking and floundering, and AMD just released their hottest consumer-facing product in decades (maybe, ever).
This just doesn't seem like the right time for layoffs. Maybe, there's something else AMD sees on the horizon?

Hottest ever would have to be the Athlon 64, which took the torch of x86 development away from Intel, and clock to clock it was almost twice as fast as competing Intels. The 9800X3D is great but it is only twice as fast when measured watt to watt, which is trickier because you could probably undervolt/clock the competing Intel and still get 80-90% the performance. It does not have the distinction of AMD changing the x86 architecture world-wide forever. Unless AVX-512 becomes the norm for all operating systems in 2-3 years.

edit: I suppose the improvement in 3d stacking could be considered something that has long term ramifications, but it is just an extrapolation of what they already did with previous X3D chips - they just stacked they chips more optimally for the thermals.

 

[Frick]

"the cutback appears to be a response to AMD's mixed quarterly report."

go private like valve and say bye bye to wallstreet

"Just be like Valve" is a take for sure.