Reports: Intel May Soon Lay Off Thousands

Intel will announce the results of an internal review of its operations next week that could result in thousands of layoffs at the company, according to published reports.

Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini told employees in an e-mail Thursday that he would reveal the results of the review in an internal webcast next Tuesday, The New York Times reported, citing an unnamed Intel employee.

A spokesman for Intel, in Santa Clara, Calif., said the company is on track to announce a restructuring plan before the end of the third quarter, meaning sometime this month. “But we are not announcing plans to do anything at this stage,” Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said, calling the talk of layoffs “speculation.”

Intel warned in April that its profits would fall sharply this year and said it would restructure the company to cut spending by more than $1 billion. “We are going to restructure, repurpose and resize Intel for the future,” Otellini said at the time.

The company has battled this year with a slump in the growth rate of PC sales and from increased competition from Advanced Micro Devices, which has been increasing its share of the market, particularly in servers.

Intel has vowed to claw the market share back with a new generation of dual-core microprocessors that it started rolling out in June.

-James Niccolai, IDG News Service (Paris Bureau)

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