14 DAY TRIAL // In a context in which major companies around the globe are announcing a series of methods meant to diminish the effects of the slow global economy, AMD is also said to plan a workforce reduction of approximately 10%. The Sunnyvale, California-based chip maker might even announce said workforce reduction in January 2009. A 10 percent cut of the company's global workforce will leave approximately 1,500 employees without their jobs.
According to a recent article on Digitimes, the Sunnyvale, California-based AMD is expected to announce a new plan to boost profitability that also includes the aforementioned reduction of about 10 percent of the company's global workforce. According to the same source, the chip maker will layoff employees mainly from its manufacturing business, but a number of administrative positions are also expected to be cut. Up to this moment, the company hasn't released any official details regarding said plan.
Back in April, the chip maker announced that it would be laying off about 10 percent of its total 16,500 employees. Following that statement, a 3 percent cut was announced in November, which affected the jobs of approximately 500 of the employees at that time.
This recent report comes after the chip maker also had to trim its fourth quarter financial report, showing an approximately 25% reduction, compared with its third quarter revenues of US$1.585 billion. As with other announcements coming from major companies in the industry, AMD lays all the blame on the slow global demand reported across all businesses, and particularly in the consumer market segment.
This has certainly been a year of ups and downs for the world's second largest chip maker – it was required to make a number of structural changes, but it also got to enjoy a good market performance thanks to the launch of its new 55nm 4000-series of Radeon graphics cards.