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Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight
- mtgx 11y agoRight now, the only content in this article is "Developing...".
- whatok 11y agoThey just announced earnings. Press release for restructuring announcement: https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/news-release-intel-announces-restructuring/ https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/news-release-intel-...
- pgrote 11y agohttp://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/19/intel-reports-q1-2016-earnings.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/19/intel-reports-q1-2016-earning... "Shares of Intel were halted after the bell Tuesday as Intel announced it would cut 12,000 jobs, or 11 percent of its workforce, by 2017 due to restructuring. The technology company also said the chief financial officer would leave that role."
- timmytokyo 11y agoHere's Intel's PR version of the story: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/INTC/1917925298x0x886662/6D73A0D5-A8CD-48A2-96E7-5234880B6304/Press_Release_Q1_2016_restructuring_-_FINAL.pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/INTC/1917925298x0x886...
- deanstag 11y agoI am actually curious. Did everyone who upvoted the title post not click on the link at all?
- RyJones 11y agoclearly, no.
- cpeterso 11y agoHN's scoring algorithm should ignore or discount upvotes if the user did not click on the article link before voting. For extra credit, HN could also watch for page visibility changes that would indicate that the user, in addition to opening the article, also switched to that the article tab. :)
- a3n 11y agoI sometimes read an article at work or home, and then later read the comments and upvote later at home or work. Don't assume that everyone operates the machine the same way you do, nor with the same goals.
- biot 11y agoI saw that as well, refreshed a few times (thinking it was failing to pull in content via some over-complicated API call) and then saw the article appear. I gather this was just a stub to help the site's SEO rankings, sort of like how support teams that are measured on "time to first response" will quickly reply to any new ticket with something like "Thanks for getting in touch. We'll look at your ticket and get back to you shortly." It may take them 24 hours to get back to you, but they've stopped the clock. Maybe Google News gives extra juice to sites that are first to break a story.
- 991819281 11y agoWhat is this utterly horrible web "design" that begins to spread everywhere. This page looks as if it was designed by a 5 year old.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mikeyouse 11y agoHoly bloodbath.. From CNBC: > Shares of Intel were halted after the bell Tuesday as Intel announced it would cut 12,000 jobs, or 11 percent of its workforce > The technology company also said the CFO would step down
- wolf_cook 11y agoFrom CNBC: "The technology company also said the chief financial officer Stacy Smith would leave that role to lead sales."
- shostack 11y agoHmmm...CFO heading up sales is not something you see every day... Anyone have any further context around this?
- zachberger 11y agoListening to the earnings call now.. Stacy wants to learn more about the other parts of the business and BK wants to show off his leadership skills to other parts of the company
- CamperBob2 11y agoLateral moves, even downward ones, are part of the corporate culture at Intel. At most large companies this type of job switching at the C-level would come as a surprise, but if you read some of the stuff Andy Grove and others have written about Intel's "matrix" practices, it's not too shocking. Basically, they believe that experience across multiple areas of the business is a good thing, and that no one should become too attached to a particular position or title.
- daveguy 11y agoThat is odd, because they also reported an 18% increase in profits.
- dismal2 11y ago
- neverminder 11y agoI really hope this is not going to affect their already ever lagging release schedule. If I'm not getting Kaby Lake Q3 this year as promised I will be severely disappointed.
- creshal 11y agoKaby Lake in itself is already a disappointment. Intel must have lots of problems with 10nm production if they're willing to slip a full product generation.
- neverminder 11y agoI wouldn't call it a disappointment. It will add native USB 3.1 (Type-C) support which is major thing for me, considering that USB Type-C is projected to become the most popular socket in the history of humanity. Also: support of Intel Optane (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_XPoint), Thunderbolt 3, HEVC, etc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaby_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaby_Lake).
- Unklejoe 11y agoI thought type C was just a connector. How is this supported or (not supported) by the SoC? There are USB 2.0 devices with a type C connector. This is more confusing than it should be for me...
- lucaspiller 11y agoSkylake supports all these, but needs a a seperated chip on the motherboard. With Kaby Lake it'll be built in to the chip. That should hopefully mean these connections aren't just restricted to high end laptops.
- B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago> I will be severely disappointed. "I'm not angry, just terribly, terribly hurt", as Marvin the Martian famously put it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwxc_zLH560 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwxc_zLH560 if you insist, it's only 72 seconds. Also featuring the line "there's a growing tendency to think of Man as a rational thinking being, which is absurd! There is simply no evidence [...]". Scriptwriter on a roll there.)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- wrong_variable 11y agoDoes anyone working within Intel know the reasoning ? It seems skylake is doing really well. Is it mostly electrical engineers working on the processors or sales and marketing people ?
- funkyy 11y agoJust a guess, but tech companies are occasionally release % of their workers to clean its workforce, boost productivity and make space for new, young and experienced engineers. Stagnation and idea depletion is dangerous for tech companies, fresh employees bring fresh ideas and boost competitiveness between workers.
- levemi 11y ago> boost competitiveness between workers. I do not think that this is a good thing...you want collaboration, not politics and back stabbing.
- funkyy 11y agoIts corporation. Morals are not really the top priority. The results are.
- gjm11 11y agoI don't think levemi is saying anything about morals -- rather, that results will be better if employees are cooperating with one another rather than playing zero-sum games in the hope of missing the next round of layoffs.
- ElysianEagle 11y agoBut it could just as easily be argued that a highly political environment which necessitates such behaviors leads to poor morale, quality employees leaving etc. etc. which couldn't be good for the company long term...
- 11y ago
- rubicon33 11y agoAm I the only one with a sinking, gut instinct, that this is indicative of a deeper problem in the economy? It feels like a crash is lurking... Maybe I'm just paranoid?
- sillysaurus3 11y agoSome of my friends expressed similar concerns, for what it's worth.
- bwhitty 11y agoNot trying to be condescending, but legitimately not much. Anecdotes don't really help us here.
- sillysaurus3 11y agoI probably should've realized it was a rhetorical question.
- ranci 11y agoJobs created: "Yay! The economy is growing! The economy created xxx,xxx jobs last month! This is a great sign!" Jobs destroyed: "This can't be a sign of anything. Anecdotes don't help us."
- ahlatimer 11y agoYou're comparing things across different levels. You have something at a macro level in one (jobs created across the economy) and at a micro level in the other (jobs destroyed at a single company). The economy as a whole might still net create jobs even with Intel laying off 11% of its workforce. Likewise, you can have the labor market across the economy shrinking while other companies are ramping up hiring. A single data point does not indicate a trend.
- dkopi 11y agoIt's just the year % 8 == 0 alarm going off.
- jmount 11y agoAlmost exactly decimation.
- logfromblammo 11y agoCloser to nonation, technically, but decimation is the word everyone already knows.
- msellout 11y ago"decimation" is also the word with meaning. "nonation" is just turning "nineth" into a verb and then somewhat of a gerund, like "ninething". Without the historical context, it has little meaning.
- logfromblammo 11y agoYet that is exactly the pattern used by decimation. decimus (tenth) + -ate (convert to verb) = decimate decimus (tenth) + -ation (resulting state of -ate form) = decimation It could be used with any Latin-rooted ordinal number. Primate, secundate, tertiate, quartate, quintate, sextate, septimate, octavate, nonate, decimate, undecimate, dodecimate. Primate, secundate, tertiate, and octavate have meanings other than either "reduce by 1/Nth" or "reduce to 1/Nth". Tertiate is actually roughly equivalent to "threepeat". Those words have about as much inherent meaning as "tenthing", but some had meanings extrapolated from "decimate" as early as 200 years ago. The "reduce to 1/Nth" meanings would be more accurately encapsulated with the "an-" (to) prefix, as in "annihilate": literally "to nothing (verb)". That would give you antertiate, anquartate, anquintate, et cetera for the reciprocal-valued words. As I said, "decimate" is the most well-known of the bunch. "Annihilate" is also well known. But every last one of them is a perfectly acceptable English combination of Latin roots, and should be understood easily enough.
- msellout 11y ago> should be understood easily enough I think you'll find you have an easier time communicating if you stick to terms that people have heard before, even if they're slightly less accurate than new creations. Of course, if you're trying to get famous, you should absolutely invent new words. Take Thomas Friedman's "glocalization". That one didn't do so well. Steven Colbert's "truthiness", that was a gem.
- mixmastamyk 11y agoHow competitive is Intel in mobile chips these days, have they been improving?
- _yosefk 11y agoI think the trouble with application processors is you ought to have lower prices and margins compared to desktops and servers, so even if they do great there it's not that great financially. Intel is a relatively high margin business so it either needs to find markets where that works, or grow volume very drastically, which is hard given their already very high volumes, or shrink.
- Snowdax 11y agoTL;DR no.
- JamilD 11y agoI wonder if this is related at all to the Altera acquisition, and how many of those employees will be affected. Intel had to give up a lot of cash, and take on quite a few redundant employees…
- spriggan3 11y agoDidn't they acquire McAfee too ? How did it ever make sense for an hardware company ?
- exbluebadge 11y agoWhat do you need to efficiently run an artificial neural net? A great mass of configurable simple cells. Sound familiar? So it's possible the current C-suite actually know what they're doing, and Intel's disfunction is concentrated in the middle layers of territorial empire builders. Krzanich, if you're reading, lay off everyone between you and the front-line managers. I know that'll be a lot more than 11%, but still.... Replace them with employees chosen at random; you really can't do worse than what you have now.
- anilshanbhag 11y agoOne must understand that this is re-structuring. Intel is probably letting go of some divisions it no longer intends to pursue. In the not-so-distant past, Microsoft did an internal re-structuring when Satya Nadella became the CEO. It isn't as bad as it is portrayed to be as most people end up getting re-hired in other groups or take the severance and join a new company.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- trollingineeer 11y agoAnd a voice of stupidity replying to the voice of reason comment.
- theandrewbailey 11y agoNews like this out of the blue is strange. I was pretty sure that the post-PC era was a sham. It still is, right?
- 5ilv3r 11y agoHow much of your time is now on a mobile that used to be on a desktop? Their core business is drying up.
- malchow 11y agoAm I the only person for whom the answer to this question is "almost none?" I'm serious: about 80% of my day is meeting with real people in the real world. Mobile phones haven't changed that. The other 20% of my day is sitting at my desk creating original work product (mathematical models and thoughtful memoranda) or reviewing the work product of others. Mobile phones haven't changed that, either. No doubt the drought in PC sales is real and permanent. But I wonder how much of that is because people just don't need to keep their laptops up to date in the age of great cloud services.
- 991823192 11y agoWhat is this utterly horrible web "design" that begins to spread everywhere? This page looks like it has been designed by a 5 year old.
- 5ilv3r 11y agoI think it's called twitter bootstrap, and it is terrible on both user experience and performance. So much hate...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- robertelder 11y agoI'm not sure how much of an effect this would have, but from a consumer's point of view, there isn't as much of a reason to buy a new PC every few years anymore. The laptop I'm using right now was purchased in 2011, and the prices in stores now are very comparable to what I paid back then. I've made up my mind to buy a new one a few times, but then when I go to the store, it just isn't worth it.
- mjevans 11y agoThat's exactly it. The same performance isn't (that much) cheaper, and it's actually difficult to find any sort of high performance laptop (for cheep). Plus, the last few laptops I've purchased all seem to die JUST after the warranties (extended or otherwise) expire. Are they finally at least putting 1080p+ screens on these as a standard thing, or is everyone still stick on that crummy 1366x768 regression?
- robertelder 11y ago> and it's actually difficult to find any sort of high performance laptop (for cheep). I went to a computer store recently, and told them that I was interested in dropping about 2k on a laptop, and I brought a list of specs (at least 16gb ram, lots of cores, etc.). He suggested I should get a gaming laptop and never gave any suggestions from his store. It will be interesting to see what the future holds, because they're already getting close to the physical limits of what they can build in terms of processors. If they start slowing down financially, it may be the case that we'll still be using computers that are about as fast as they are today in 7-10 years from now.
- tma-1 11y agoSo Intel is cutting 11% of its workforce, Goldman Sachs just reported a 56% drop in profits, Morgan Stanley had a 50% drop in profits, Netflix missed subscriber growth estimates etc... yet, the Dow just hit a 9-Month high, and the S&P500 is now above 2100. The whole market is overvalued, not just the tech unicorns.
- bduerst 11y ago>Bubble Four companies don't represent the market. Come on. I swear some users here will wish will wish bubbles out of the air to gripe about.
- tim333 11y agoI don't think anyone above said "bubble". Overvalued is a different thing markets are usually either over or undervalued and probably overvalued today. Bubbles proper are kind of rare, the last major clear one being the 2006 housing bubble. You could argue there's a bond bubble presently.
- bduerst 11y agoYou're right - Claiming the markets are overvalued like the unicorn bubble isn't literally saying there is a bubble, it's just implying there is. There is most likely a corporate bond bubble, as we know from representative market signals. With the S&P 500 though, four companies are not representative signals.
- trollingineeer 11y agoYou understand nothing about the markets or the stock market. But like everyone else here on HackerNews you think you are knowledgeable in all things.
- dntrkv 11y agoIf you pick and choose stocks, you can tell any story you want. Intel cutting its workforce is more of a reflection on the state of the PC market rather than the US economy as a whole. I'm not saying the market is overvalued or not, but this is in no way indicative of that.
- spriggan3 11y agoDidn't they spend 300 millions on a diversity initiative recently to hire women and minorities ? who are they firing now ? http://fortune.com/2015/01/12/intel-diversity/ http://fortune.com/2015/01/12/intel-diversity/
- IBM 11y agoI think if there's any time Apple would switch to their own ARM designed chips for Macs, it's now. This along with Intel slowing down from their Tick-Tock schedule will probably do it.
- billyhoffman 11y agoWhy? The POWER->x86 jump was made largely because of the need to have more performance from the chips (raw power) and better performance per watt (for laptops). Intel wooed Apple on what they had available at the time as well as the impressive roadmap of where the they going. I often get 10 hours of battery life on my Macbook pro, so they did something right! I totally think Apple will go to ARM, but I can't see Apple doing shift until OS X is getting similar performance on ARM over x86. When Job introduced the x86 switch, he said they had had an internal version of OS X running x86 since day 1. I'm sure they have a version on ARM as well right now, and are just waiting for them to get "good enough". Apple's marketing on recent iOS devices has been also very interesting. Lots of use of the phrase "Desktop Class". Also, the GeekBench scores, and AnandTech teardowns support the hype: Apple's ARM chips truly are best-in-class and rapidly approaching mainstream x86 performance.
- IBM 11y agoI think it's obvious why and you've stated part of it. Apple's designs are rapidly approaching the level of Intel's and Intel is stretching out their R&D and reducing their investment in this area. So Apple will be asking themselves, why give away all that margin to Intel when we can do it ourselves and keep it? (Intel's gross margin is 62%, no idea what it is for their consumer processors specifically).
- billyhoffman 11y agoI misunderstood you then. I read you post as "Intel in financial trouble? This will make Apple leave them"
- jernfrost 11y agoYou already made the case for it. In a couple of years, intel performance will simply not matter to 90% of users. They will care more about battery life, size, screen quality, weight, thinness, quality of build materials, speed of SSD disk etc. But the big difference between POWER->86 is that Apple now has majority of their products on a different architecture. Apple is a company that likes simplicity. They are going to want to have everything on one hardware architecture. As laptops get thinner they will basically be able to use identical hardware in iPads and laptops. It will just be different hardware exterior and OS.
- randomname2 11y ago- Cuts outlook: sees revenue up mid-single digits, down from prior outlook of mid- to high-single digits - Also cuts full year margin guidance, sees 62% down from 63% before - Generated $4 BN in cash from operations, of which it spent $1.2 BN on dividends, $793MM for buybacks and saved the rest for severance - Notable difference in GAAP vs non-GAAP: GAAP Net Income: $2.046BN (missing expectations), non-GAAP Net Income: $2.629BN
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tedsanders 11y agoThis is what the end of Moore's Law looks like. * Tick-tock is dead. * 10 nm is severely delayed. * EUV is severely delayed. * Significant layoffs in R&D * The ITRS roadmap is vaguer than it's ever been. * Giant mergers are up (Intel+Altera, KLA+Lam, etc.), concentrating the industry more than ever. * And ultimately: A 5-year-old PC still works just fine. When I say this is the end of Moore's Law, I'm not trying to be dogmatic. Of course there will still be a semiconductor industry and of course there will still be amazing technological progress. But it seems the rate of that progress is slowing, and now the industry is adjusting.
- dangero 11y agoInteresting point. If we are witnessing the end, would we recognize it at the time? Moore's Law has been something we've become accustomed to, so it almost seems hard to believe that it will end even if we are told that it will. Makes me wonder what research money will be spent on instead of just faster chips.
- api 11y agoWorst case scenario: nothing. The R&D goes away. Look at aerospace for a nightmare scenario. In the early 20th century we got fixed wing flight. In the teens and 20s we got motorized fighters and the first passenger planes. In the 40s we got jets. In the 50s we broke the sound barrier and orbited Sputnik. In the 60s we landed on the Moon. In the 70s we... stopped going to the Moon. In the 80s nothing much happened except declassification of a few things (stealth) that were developed in the 60s and 70s. In the 2000s we grounded the Concorde. Passenger flight got slower and more expensive. In 2016 we fly on passenger planes no faster than what we used in the 70s and 80s, and we're stuck in low Earth orbit. 1969 was the peak of the aerospace industry. With the exception of SpaceX (which is really just picking up where NASA left off), we are less advanced today than we were in the 1960s. There's many places we could go beyond conventional Moore's Law: multi-dimensional chips, optical, quantum, exotic materials with very low power consumption, etc. But if what we have is "good enough" and there is little demand for anything faster, the R&D dollars won't be spent. If anything the shift toward mobile computing and wimpy thin client endpoint devices might actually lead to a pull-back and loss of capability similar to the one we saw in aerospace after the 70s. The consolidation we are seeing is not a good sign. This is what happens when an industry decides it's now a cash cow and it's time to go out to pasture. We also could have a base on the Moon and Mars right now and be working on our first interstellar probe to Alpha Centauri. Physics didn't stop us. Economics and politics did.
- dman 11y agoWondering if Intel is moving out of some markets completely - mobile chips (phones / tablets) is the one market that comes to my mind. The margins on those are almost non existent currently (on the low / medium end).
- rdl 11y agoIf they're cutting entire divisions, there will be a great mix of strong performers in there -- great for other companies who are hiring. I'd always love to talk to Intel people from the hardware security projects (SGX, etc.).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- angersock 11y agoOh man, they're even better than AMD at laying off people.
- yeukhon 11y agoIntel's IT department is so big it was for me to believe it. On the other hand I am pretty amazed that they were so serious about keeping internal application communication encrypted end to end, in every layer.
- a3n 11y agoThey're likely a very juicy target for economic espionage.
- tmaly 11y agoIntel is in a very cyclical industry. They over hire when the economy is doing very well, and they cut when things are not. I got a pink slip from Intel back in 2001 just after I graduated college when the dotcom bust happened.
- mixedbit 11y agoWhat Intel needs is some reason for people to do compute intensive tasks on their computers. Today games are probably the only popular type of app that requires abundant CPU power, for most other popular activities CPU usage is low which doesn't motivate to upgrade hardware. Maybe VR can change this?
- blakeyrat 11y agoGames have been GPU-bound for years and years. Even in 2011 when it came out, Skyrim used (at most) 30-40% of CPU power. Fallout 4 (updated version of the same engine) uses proportionally far less. In short, no, gamers aren't buying new CPUs every 18 months like they used to, either. GPUs, maybe, but Intel's weak in the gaming GPU space.
- tyingq 11y ago>>What Intel needs is some reason for people to do compute intensive tasks on their computers. It used to be that the frequent Windows version bumps had incrementally higher minimum requirements, and would drive the hardware upgrades. Guessing that curve flattened out...I have Windows 10 running on very old laptops, and it works just fine, so long as I have an SSD.
- decasteve 11y agoSoftware developers have all moved to the server or mobile. Nobody pushing the envelope on PC software any more. That's the impression I get.
- manav 11y agoWhile there are obvious market valuation issues at play, I think this signals more about Intel and it's future strategy. The layoffs come shortly after their $16.7 billion acquisition of Altera was completed. Intel really missed out on mobile and with PC sales rapidly declining it looks like they are going to refocus on enterprise and data centers. ARM and NVIDIA/GPU computing are also expanding rapidly in those areas and that will pose a major threat to Intel.
- mattbillenstein 11y agoLarge enterprise companies like this can lay off 10% anytime they want with little effect on output -- there are oodles of people slacking in big corporations basically not doing much of anything except collecting a paycheck.
- aluminussoma 11y agoAnd do you think these same companies are just as efficient as identifying who's slacking off? I don't think so. They may know that 10% of the company is slacking off, but they often end up amputating a hand when they meant to just trim the fingernails.
- tyingq 11y agoA very common approach is giving every front-line leader the 10% target, rather than trying to actually trim the actual bottom 10% from a performance standpoint. Results are as you would imagine.
- michaelt 11y agoA cynical manager who knows his employer periodically clears out 10% dead weight would keep some dead weight around, so they could deliver the cut without losing the guys they need.
- seeing 11y agoI wonder how CEOs feel about their bottom line when they're off by such a big percentage in the workforce they need. Couldn't they have predicted this sooner?
- ArtDev 11y agoI bet VR will lead to more PC sales in the coming years.
- datashaman 11y agoThere's this thing called the stock market where bets like this are quite common. If you're certain, now is the time... :)
- aluminussoma 11y agoA good friend was laid off from Intel during their last round of layoffs. Without going to into details that would identify my friend, he was laid off after losing a game of internal politics. His division's vice president even apologized to him for his layoff. My friend's story gave me the impression of Intel being a highly dysfunctional company. My friend was sad to leave Intel, but I think it was good for him in the long run. For those about to be laid off from Intel, I hope it also works out for you.
- mmagin 11y agoAre there companies with >100,000 employees who are not highly dysfunctional?
- sounds 11y agoNumber of employees as a metric for dysfunction? Why not number of court injunctions? Number of union strikes? I mean, if we're getting serious, we could write a dysfunction function, D = dysfunctional points: D = (points for threat posed by dysfunctional government) + 4*(points for direct environmental harm done by company) + 2*(points for environmental harm caused by subcontractors) + (points for each lobbying dollar spent) + 2*(points for frivolous or non-FRAND patent lawsuits) + 10*(points for fighting against a free and open internet) + (points for trying to track users / violate privacy) + 10*(points for getting hacked, releasing user's private data) etc.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- exbluebadge 11y agoAs Andy Glew said, "Only the paranoid survive." I was part of a section laid off en masse under similar circumstances. Our group got a paper "award" for cross-team collaboration, and the partner group got to keep their jobs. The severance was decent, and my new job pays twice as much, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.
- 11y ago
- qaq 11y agoMaybe it's time to innovate a bit? I have 0 reasons to upgrade my 6 year old MAC Pro, I would need to spend 5K to get a mild performance boost.
- superkuh 11y agoI agree but that's a bad example. Macs are notoriously expensive for the performance they deliver.
- qaq 11y agoThat's a stereotype from a time long gone. The difference in price between Mac Pro and identically configured dell workstation is minimal. On the low end yes there is price difference. On mid tier iMac 27" 5k costs about the same as dell 5K monitor without the computer (they use identical LCD).
- testpass 11y agoThis will have a pretty bad effect on the company's morale. Depending on how long this layoff occurs for (1 month vs 1 year), everyone will feel extremely uneasy going into work knowing today's possibly the last day.
- sxcurry 11y agoAs you read these comments, I'll repeat mine from an earlier post: Don't come to HN for legal, medical, or economic advice!
- hiram112 11y agoIntel ranks #14 in H1B use and was a large proponent of the bill to increase the allowance foreign tech workers. So I'm assuming their inability to find 'talent' is no longer an issue? Same as Microsoft, IBM, and the numerous other big corps that have had massive layoffs recently, while also claiming an inability to find enough US tech workers?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- lgessler 11y agoYou're assuming that the 11% is coming from roles that are so hard to hire for it becomes more economical to look overseas for the talent--is that true? In other words, I think it's just worth pointing out that Intel's a huge company and it might be that these layoffs are coming from roles where market demand is lower.
- elliotec 11y agoI think this is spot on. A lot of companies I know that are doing layoffs are entirely hands-off developers, except maybe the occasional breaking off with a contracting company.
- ta_04192016 11y agoThe people fired don't have the right skills. They hire with H1B because the domestic labor market doesn't have enough people with these skills.
- eyeareque 11y agoReally, not because they are cheaper and wear handcuffs to their desk so-to-say since they'd have to go back home if they lose their job?
- Deusdies 11y agoNo, not because of that. In case you did not know, the companies are obligated to pay H1b employees more than the prevailing wage for that position in that county. This is something controlled by the Department of Labor.
- williesleg 11y agoMeanwhile Tesla sells preorders for 300k+ cars no one has ever seen or driven before.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- vicinno 11y agobubble? next crisis is coming?
- info415 11y agotest
- tomohawk 11y agoH1B use is up, though. http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/19/intel-lays-off-12000-people-after-lobbying-for-more-foreign-workers/ http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/19/intel-lays-off-12000-peopl...
- kevin_thibedeau 11y agoLast I checked they were the #1 sponsor for EEs/Computer Engineers. It's appalling that Congress looks the other way when abuse is clearly evident.
- azaxacavaba 11y agoWhen you pay the exact amount of money and benefits and sometimes even more as joining bonus and stocks awards for a H1B employee, how can this be an abuse of the system?
- adrenalinelol 11y agoThe argument "we can't fill all these open positions, please let us bring in foreign workers" then firing 10,000 people contradicts why they want the government to deregulate the system.
- azaxacavaba 11y agoThe company has to refocus and change the way it was working, and requires restructuring because of recent losses. This cannot be associated with its stand on a law. If Google has a glowing quarter results and says it needs more H1B workers are you willing to accept its stand? My point was the idea that H1B workforce in companies like Intel, or Google is cheap is just a myth.
- dingo_bat 11y agoNo, it just means none of the 10k people were qualified enough. They were not fit for the open positions. Otherwise there is no sense in hiring an H1B with the same salary plus all the H1B related fees and expenses.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y agoGuess they should have kept going with StrongARM/XScale. They could've had a mature, trusted product line by now.
- info415 11y agotesting
- xienze 11y ago> “It’s acknowledging the reality that it’s a single-digit growth world,” Oh, the horror.
- zump 11y agoGoodBYE!
- cmurf 11y agoMakes sense. My 5 year old laptop has a i7-2820QM, 8 vcpus, is plenty fast for the stuff I do, 4600 bogomips, 45W. My recent upgrade was a NUC with a Pentium N3700, 4 real cores, 3200 bogomips, 4W. Pretty impressive.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- nxzero 11y agoBeing in hardware is getting harder and harder. Increasingly the footprint of hardware is becoming sparser, replaced by software, etc. It is time to make the push to make hardware open source mainstream from the point power hops on to where software picks up. There are many, many really good reasons to do this, but in the end, to me, it will define how free the world is.
- ashitlerferad 11y agoHope some of those folks are chip designers and they decide to go work on the RISC-V/lowRISC projects.
- known 11y agoUnlike Capitalism, Globalization is Zero-sum
- mparramon 11y ago"Robots will soon begin taking human jobs in places like retail stores, fast food restaurants, construction sites and transportation. The key technology that will fuel the transition is inexpensive computer vision systems, and the number of human jobs at risk numbers in the tens of millions. More than half of the jobs in the United States could be eliminated." http://www.amazon.es/Manna-Visions-Humanitys-Future-English-ebook/dp/B007HQH67U http://www.amazon.es/Manna-Visions-Humanitys-Future-English-...
- mtgx 11y ago> The company said it’s shifting focus to higher-growth areas, such as chips for data center machines and connected devices. Where have I heard this before? I think in a little book called the "Innovator's Dilemma". Can anyone predict what happens next? I wonder if Intel will try to push Atom into "Core i3" and make single-core Core i7's next to "increase profitability". They've already started making dual-core Core i7s - I mean how ridiculous is that idea?! Isn't a dual core Core i7 supposed to be a Core i5? Do their brands still mean anything anymore?
- wINfo 11y agoThere's an irrational belief system at hardware companies about Windows that clouds their logic and leads to a sense of separation anxiety. Intel lost the opportunity to get a lead in mobile because they viewed the Linux/UNIX client device category as a side business rather than making it their core platform. They continued to invest substantial resources in supporting Windows 8 and Windows 10 despite the obvious reality that Windows is a dead-end platform with no growth prospects. It isn't just Intel but even nVidia/AMD lost the mobile space for this same reason, too much Windows not enough Linux/UNIX. The Windows ecosystem has become corrosive to any industry or company it touches. We now see the end results of supporting a closed-source legacy platform is 12,000 jobs at Intel due to the lack of excitement and innovation in the PC space. Perhaps Linux will revive the PC market but in the meantime Intel and their peers at nVidia/AMD have done little to make that a reality in the mainstream sense.
- WayneBro 11y agoEvery single thing you said is complete hogwash and you have provided zero evidence to backup any of your poorly formed opinions. To begin with, Intel didn't lose an opportunity to get a lead in mobile because of their views on Linux/UNIX. None of the players today have a "lead" in mobile because of Unix. They have a lead because of the touch-based front-end. It wouldn't have mattered what that was running on. Furthermore, Windows is responsible for creating numerous multi-billion dollar industries and Windows obviously holds a ton of value for businesses that Linux can't even compete with. That's why just about every business runs Windows and not Linux. The willfully obliviousness of nix fanboys like you is boring.
- wINfo 11y ago> Every single thing you said is complete hogwash and you have provided zero evidence to backup any of your poorly formed opinions... The evidence is obvious if you read the article about Intel cutting 11% of it's global workforce which is a big deal. This was due to the declining PC business which for Intel is primarily part of the Windows ecosystem and the need to restructure to focus on mobile, IoT and servers which is part of the Linux/UNIX ecosystem of devices. > To begin with, Intel didn't lose an opportunity to get a lead in mobile because of their views on Linux/UNIX. None of the players today have a "lead" in mobile because of Unix. They have a lead because of the touch-based front-end. It wouldn't have mattered what that was running on. Microsoft pushed it's Windows first strategy which meant focusing on laptops/desktops and Intel's core devices business was tied deeply into this strategy after years of close collaboration. All of the Windows based mobile devices failed miserably. Microsoft struggled to port Windows to ARM which didn't work that well. This didn't leave any real opportunity for Intel to get into mobile in the early days, it had to choose between it's relationship with Microsoft or breaking out into a new direction and embracing other partners and it did not do this. Even if you look at the ultrabook that was a byproduct of Intel's work with Apple on the MacBook. That kind of innovation just wasn't possible with Microsoft because their strategy was contrary to where the market was headed. There was a huge opportunity to push a Linux based mobile/desktop hybrid but Intel never made an effort to move into that direction. > Furthermore, Windows is responsible for creating numerous multi-billion dollar industries and Windows obviously holds a ton of value for businesses that Linux can't even compete with. That's why just about every business runs Windows and not Linux. In the past it "created" value but that's irrelevant to businesses as they are concerned with future value. This is what Intel is doing here in their restructuring re-focusing away from "what things were 5 years ago" to "where things are now and where they are going". > The willfully obliviousness of nix fanboys like you is boring. Like I said in my earlier comment, there is this irrational defensive thought process when it comes to Windows and you demonstrate that perfectly.
- OliverJones 11y agoFor years Intel got to ride the rocketship of routine chip-density doubling. For years the new chips were so much superior to the old ones that it paid to replace them and the machines into which they were built. Now, not so much. I can put a SSD and more RAM in my eight-year-old laptop and make it work just about as well as a new one. I can switch off the old HP DL380/G5 boxes in my colo, hand them over to the steel recycling guy, move the data to some cloud service, and come out ahead electricity bill vs. cloud bill. I'm not buying many processor chips anymore. Neither is anybody else, except maybe the cloud services. And their bargaining power makes Dell and HP look like the guys in the white-box computer shop down the street. The processor chip rocket ship has entered orbit; its occupants are now in microgravity. Some other rocket ship will be the next big ride. It's too bad those folks are out of work. It's too bad plutocrats always behave as if les bontemps rouleront toujours.
- teh_klev 11y ago> I can put a SSD and more RAM in my eight-year-old laptop and make it work just about as well as a new one. I did exactly that with an old i3 based all-in-one Sony Vaio PC my dad handed down to me. It previously had a 3.5" 5400rpm spinner and 4GB of RAM and would take a month of Sundays to boot. I installed a 250GB SSD and another 4GB of RAM and it totally transformed the machine. All it cost was GBP62.00 (I got an amazing Black Friday deal on both SSD and memory). Hell, the thing can even run Visual Studio 2015 and a couple of CentOS VM's on Virtual Box and still feel quite responsive.