SANTA CLARA — Intel plans to chop another 500 jobs in the Bay Area in a fresh round of staffing reductions that reveal the local impact of the massive worldwide cutbacks that the tech titan has orchestrated.
The semiconductor leviathan has decided to eliminate 516 jobs in Santa Clara, Intel reported via an official WARN letter that the company sent to the state Employment Development Department.
Just a few days ago, Intel revealed its intention to chop 47 jobs in north San Jose.
Intel said in its latest WARN letter that the 516 job cuts that it was planning in Santa Clara were an update to — and a sharp increase from — its prior estimate that it was planning to cut just 54 jobs in its headquarters city.
These are the tech companies that have eliminated the most jobs in the Bay Area over the nearly three-year period that began in 2022, the assessment of the WARN notices shows:
— Meta Platforms, 5,195 layoffs in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Burlingame, Sunnyvale and Fremont.
— Tesla, 3,652 job cuts in Fremont, Palo Alto and San Mateo.
— Cisco Systems, 2,649 staffing reductions in San Jose, San Francisco and Milpitas.
— Google, 2,507 layoffs in Mountain View, Moffett Field, San Bruno, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and San Francisco.
— Intel, 1,627 layoffs in Santa Clara and San Jose.
— Broadcom, 1267 job cuts in Palo Alto.
— Salesforce, 1,202 staffing reductions in San Francisco.
— Twitter, 900 job cuts in San Jose and San Francisco.
— PayPal, 772 staffing reductions in San Jose.
— LinkedIn, 711 layoffs in Sunnyvale, Mountain View and San Francisco.
Intel’s latest disclosures of job cuts mean Bay Area tech layoffs have trudged past a grim milestone.
In 2022, 2023 and 2024, tech companies disclosed plans to eliminate more than 48,300 jobs in the Bay Area. This period marks the years in which tech firms have embarked on quests to trim their workforces and increase efficiency in the post-coronavirus era.
Over the two years of coronavirus-linked shutdowns in 2020 and 2021, tech companies dramatically increased hiring to meet the demand for products and services to enable people to work and learn remotely or from home.
Once the shutdowns ended, that demand withered and tech companies discovered they had a surplus of workers.
Simulataneously, the tech industry was forced to reinvent itself as it has done on countless occasions, this time to stake claims in the fledging gold rush into the artificial intelligence field.
Even as layoffs persist, tech companies are hiring workers in fertile fields such as artificial intelligence, network security, fintech, health tech, renewable energy, quantum computing, advanced robotics and autonomous vehicles.
Santa Clara-based Intel’s local layoffs are part of the company’s revelation in August that it would jettison 15,000 jobs worldwide, a restructuring ushered in by “disappointing” results for the legendary tech titan.
The tech titan said at the time it had decided to slash 15% of its workforce worldwide, which would trigger a jaw-dropping loss of 15,000 positions.
“This is painful news for me to share,”Intel Chief Executive Office Pat Gelsinger said in a blog post in August. “I know it will be even more difficult for you to read.”
Intel’s latest Bay Area staffing reductions are slated to take effect on Nov. 15.
The tech behemoth did leave open the possibility that some laid-off workers might be able to keep working at Intel.
“Some impacted employees may find comparable roles within Intel and remain employed,” James Walker, director of corporate people movement, told the EDD in the WARN letter.