AMD to Lay Off 500 More Employees

Although it is doing better than expected, at least in what the third quarter earnings showed, Advance Micro Devices announced on Wednesday that it would lay off 500 more employees. The company will cut about 3 percent of its working force, a move expected to reduce expenses. This would be the second wave of layoffs the Sunnyvale based chipmaker operates this year, following the April announcement during which the company said it planned to cut 10 percent of its employees, which meant about 1,650 jobs at that moment.

AMD has been through a round of different managerial and structural changes during the latest months. Back in July, AMD CEO Hector Ruiz announced that his objective to step down from his ruling position at the company, and that Dirk Meyer would be the person to take over the helm. About a month ago, the chip manufacturer announced that it would spin off into two separate companies, one meant to design chips, the other meant to build them.

The recently announced lay offs are expected to affect all of the company's departments. The employees of the newly formed $5.7 billion manufacturing entity, known under the name of The Foundry Company, will not be affected. TFC has around 3,000 employees. The job cuts come after the company reported only a small third quarter loss, which, on the background of the global economic crisis, managed to surprise analysts and industry watchers.

The third quarter of this year was a surprisingly good one for AMD, as it announced a much smaller-than-expected quarterly loss. While analysts expected the company to see a third-quarter loss of 40 cents per share on $1.48 billion in revenue, Advanced Micro Devices reported a net loss of no more than $67 million, or 11 cents per share. During the same announcement, the chipmaker stated having reached operating profitability in the third quarter of this year.