Intel says reports of 20k redundancies ‘inaccurate’ and states previous early retirement options robbed them of valuable experience

Last week was a pretty terrifying one for Intel employees after reports came out stating the company was set to let go 20% of its entire workforce. In good, but still relatively horrifying news for employees Intel has since quashed those rumours, saying the figure was overstated… though not how much by.

According to CTech, an all-hands video conference was held for Intel staff attempting to put these rumours to rest. During the call, Chief Financial Officer David Zisner reassured staff that the 20% or approximately 20,000 planned layoffs was overstated, but did not clarify what the actual number would be.

In very corporate speak, the call explained that each department would individually assess itself, potentially offering employee buyouts to help trim the fat. One thing Intel did state is it won’t be offering is any early retirement this time around, stating that doing so in the past has cost the company valuable experience.

I can’t imagine how much of a let down this is to some of the longer standing folks at Intel who are super ready for a break. In a world where the retirement age keeps getting pushed back, early retirement packages have never looked so tempting. But of course, as Intel fears, they often result in losing knowledgeable staff.

This likely is especially true in the engineering sectors, which Intel is specifically looking to bolster, rather than strip back the skill base at this time. There’s an incredible wealth of built-up knowledge around the process of engineering semiconductors that filling some of these gaps as folks get older and retire must be getting increasingly difficult.

This came about the same week CEO Lip-Bu Tan had sent an internal letter calling for changes to the company’s structure and culture, specifically stating: “We must balance our reductions with the need to retain and recruit key talent.”

This is all to try to strengthen Intel’s competitive standing in the semiconductor and tech industries. Interesting take from the guy also looking to make partnerships within the industry.

Still this leaves Intel employees holding their breaths for now. Though we don’t know the exact number, chances are it’s still pretty high, and that’s even though Intel laid off 15,000 people just last year. It’s promised that these layoffs will happen as quickly as possible over the next couple of months, likely in a further effort to get those costs down as fast as possible.